The Air Charter Safety Foundation’s (ACSF) Industry Audit Standard (IAS) is receiving a significant boost from a teaming agreement with one of the largest and most well-known charter auditors, Argus International, which also was one of the IAS chief skeptics. ACSF and Argus announced their agreement in principle on the IAS during this month’s ACSF Air Charter Safety Symposium in Ashburn, Va. At the same time, Argus formally joined the foundation.

Daher-Socata is planning to begin delivery this month of the next iteration of its TBM single-turboprop family, the TBM 900, which flies farther and faster than its TBM 850 predecessor. TBM officials say the latest member of the family was certified after 160,000 research and development hours and 200 flight-test hours. The TBM 900 incorporates 26 modifications, including winglets and a vertical tailfin strake, along with a new tail cone.

Eclipse Aerospace formally returned the Eclipse very light jet to market with the first delivery of the new Eclipse 550 on March 12. Eclipse handed over the first Eclipse 550 to a Louisiana-based businessman in the energy business after receiving the last of the requisite FAA approvals on Feb. 28. The second 550 was set for delivery March 13 to a customer based in South America.

While the vast majority of all aircraft accidents still occur in the landing phase, research shows that nearly all pilots who fly professionally ignore company policies regarding go-around procedures. Why pilots ignore the policies and decide to land is lesser known. But William Curtis of Canadian research firm Presage says, “No other single decision can have such an impact on the industry accident rate.”

The National Transportation Safety Board will lose one of its longest-sitting members with the departure of Chairman Deborah Hersman on April 25. Hersman announced March 11 that she is leaving to become president of the National Safety Council. Hersman was appointed to the safety board as a member in 2004, filling the slot vacated by John Goglia, and became chairman in 2009. In a low-profile agency that in the past frequently grappled with board vacancies, fewer than a handful of people have served a decade or longer.

Asia's millions of newly wealthy citizens are keen to travel, and new low-cost carriers are boosting fleets and routes to serve them. But the region's air traffic regime is inconsistent and non-homogeneous—which is why Singapore is taking steps to develop more localized air traffic management expertise.

With contracts awarded for designs of initial supersonic X-plane concepts, NASA's High Speed Project is working on a new set of foundational technologies, instrumentation and test techniques that will prepare the way for its development later this decade. “The High Speed Project feels the next major step is to build a flight demonstrator, and we're trying to do everything we can to be prepared for when the time comes,” says Tom Jones, High Speed Project deputy project manager at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif.

In the last decade, Congress has moved increasingly toward the use of multi-year contracts to save on big-ticket defense programs. But the Pentagon's current long-term budget plans call for stopping the purchase of Sikorsky MH-60 helicopters one year before its current fixed-price, multi-year agreement expires. That prompts the contractor to raise the specter of the decision reversing the trend in multi-year contracting.