By Garth Calitz For decades, the light piston twin was the aircraft of choice for pilots who wanted to travel farther, carry more and enjoy the reassurance of having a second engine. From the Beechcraft Baron and Piper Seneca to the Cessna 310, these aircraft became familiar sights at airports around the world, serving private owners, businesses, flying schools and charter operators. Today, however, the piston twin finds itself at a crossroads. Modern single-engine aircraft o

By Garth Calitz South Africa’s general aviation community has plenty to worry about. Fuel is expensive, maintenance bills have developed an alarming resemblance to small property deposits and regulatory compliance can sometimes feel like a full-time occupation. Now there is another question worth asking: what happens when the places we fly from begin to disappear? Across the country, small airfields face a combination of infrastructure problems, financial pressures, developme

By Garth Calitz An aviation safety investigation, a pilot’s career on the line, and an uncomfortable question: how do you challenge a finding when the evidence you want to examine is no longer available? South African aviation has no shortage of regulations, procedures, committees and people whose job descriptions suggest that every conceivable eventuality has already been anticipated. Yet when something goes wrong, the system occasionally produces a result that leaves everyo

By Garth Calitz Elon Musk has apparently decided that four wheels and a road are no longer sufficient. But while Tesla's rocket-assisted Roadster promises to defy gravity, the aviation industry might want to hold off on cancelling its runway bookings. The flying car has been promising to revolutionise personal transport for decades. From science-fiction fantasies to ambitious engineering projects, we have repeatedly been assured that the days of sitting in traffic are numbere

By Garth Calitz A rocket-assisted combat drone, artificial intelligence and an ambitious 2029 operational deadline are bringing Europe closer to a new era of air warfare, in which uncrewed aircraft could fly alongside conventional fighters, undertake high-risk missions and provide additional combat capability without placing another pilot in harm’s way. The future of air combat is increasingly looking like a team effort in which one pilot may command several aircraft, some of

By Garth Calitz A 3,199-mile autonomous flight raises an uncomfortable question for the aviation industry: if computers can fly aircraft from take-off to landing, how long before airlines decide they no longer need pilots in the cockpit? For more than a century, pilots have occupied a privileged position in aviation. They have trained for years, accumulated thousands of flying hours and accepted responsibility for the lives of everyone aboard their aircraft. Now, increasingly

By Garth Calitz The US Army wants an aircraft that can fly twice as fast and twice as far as the helicopters it is intended to supplement and partially replace. Bell Textron is building it. The Pentagon is funding it. And the press releases are, predictably, full of encouraging developments. The MV-75 Cheyenne II is being developed to transform the way the US Army moves troops, evacuates casualties and conducts long-range assault operations. It promises to combine the vertica

By Garth Calitz Saudi Airports Return to Operations After Missile and Drone Attacks, but Airline Suspensions and Conflict-Zone Warnings Continue to Threaten Regional Aviation Commercial aviation has spent decades refining its ability to manage turbulence, technical failures, airspace congestion and the occasional passenger who believes cabin crew are employed as personal servants. Its latest challenge is considerably more serious: operating in a region where missiles and dron

By Garth Calitz South Africa’s aviation regulator celebrates international safety credentials and a clean audit record, but rising general aviation fatalities and questions over regulatory accountability offer a less comfortable picture. The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) had plenty to celebrate at its State of Aviation media conference on 13 October. South Africa remains among the world’s best-performing states for aviation safety oversight; the regulator has

By Garth Calitz Cybersecurity concerns, unexplained financial record deletions and an uncomfortable audit outcome have put South Africa’s air navigation service provider under scrutiny. For an organisation responsible for keeping the country’s skies orderly, the questions are piling up faster than the answers. Few organisations in South African aviation can afford to have a bad day quite like Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS). When the systems responsible for managin