John was editor of Aviation Week's ShowNews for nearly two decades. He retired in 2020. His background in business journalism before joining Aviation Week includes stints at Reuters, the American Banker daily banking newspaper and as business news editor at the Milwaukee Journal and the Cincinnati Enquirer.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast, John has been a private pilot for 34 years and won an award at EAA Oshkosh for his restoration of a vintage British Auster army spotter aircraft. He is currently building a 1920s Staaken Flitzer biplane from plans. John attended his first Farnborough Air Show in 1952, when just eight months old.
Chinese small unmanned aircraft manufacturer Ehang plans the launch next year of a commercial version of its autonomous single-passenger vertical-takeoff-and-landing air vehicle that flies without a pilot, under the control of a plug-and-play iPad.
The vehicle currently occupies an awkward spot as being too heavy to fit the Federal Aviation Administration’s 55-lb weight limit for commercial drones, yet it cannot qualify as an experimental aircraft because it is autonomous and has no pilot.
