FAA Information and Services

Date

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Pilot Turbine Magazine

| May 1, 2025

Hanging in the balance

As a pilot, you travel. You are not sitting next to your mailbox daily, waiting to see if mail from the FAA shows up. Yet you need to know quickly when certain kinds of FAA documents arrive. Too often, pilots lose their right to fly or all their certificates because they did not realize the FAA sent a notice until it was too late to respond. You can lose everything, without the ability to fight it, and this happens to airmen every year.

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Pilot Magazine

| May 1, 2025

Flight training flexibility

Many flight instructors, particularly those teaching under FAR Part 61, like to put their own spin on the instruction they provide, and unlike flight schools operating under Part 141, flight instructors teaching under Part 61 don’t have to follow a rigid training curriculum. This allows Part 61 instructors to interject some fun into the process or, perhaps, reinvigorate a struggling student by teaching differently.

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Advocacy

| April 17, 2025

Aircraft owners, speak up for your privacy

Aircraft owners who value their privacy and oppose ADS-B-based landing fees are encouraged to join AOPA in supporting the recent FAA update enabling aircraft owners to request that their name and contact information be withheld from public dissemination.

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Advocacy

| April 10, 2025

FAA launches 2025 GA survey

The FAA is sending surveys through the mail to some aircraft owners and operators as part of the forty-seventh annual general aviation activity survey, which covers both FAR Part 91 and Part 135 operations.

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Advocacy

| April 3, 2025

FAA plans to shut down RCO network, seeks feedback

Pilots’ days of contacting flight service from the air using the network of remote communications outlets (RCOs) appear to be numbered following the FAA’s publication of its notice of intent to decommission the RCO system largely because of a significant decline in its use.

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Advocacy

| March 26, 2025

Notam modernization accelerating

Most pilots have dealt with issues or concerns with notams, including confusing content—or the system going down altogether (as happened again for a few hours on March 22). Everyone is more than ready for something better.

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Advocacy

| February 12, 2025

Make your flying count

The FAA has emailed invitations (to be mailed February 14) to individual aircraft owners to respond online to the forty-seventh annual General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey and provide data that informs a range of policy decisions. AOPA encourages members to participate.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Tips from pic Custom n numbers

By Rodney Martz

More than just vanity plates for your new aircraft, a custom N number is easier to obtain than ever—but pay attention to the regulatory timeframes.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Loose standard

The Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), first adopted in 1975, govern how facts and conclusions drawn from evidence are used during trials in civil and criminal lawsuits.

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Flight Training Magazine

| October 22, 2024

Easy to hard

Q: What exactly is the FAA trying to say in FAR 61.129(a)(4) regarding aeronautical experience requirements for commercial pilot training? It indicates both solo and dual are acceptable.

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Advocacy

| July 10, 2024

Get to know letters to airmen

Reading notices to air missions (notams) can be a tedious task for pilots, but it’s probably fair to say that most of us are pretty familiar with them and know how important they are to the safe operation of the national airspace system.

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Article

| May 2, 2024

FAA advises Lake Amphibian spar inspections

The FAA has issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin regarding potential cracks that can develop in the wing structures of certain aircraft produced by Revo Inc., which include several Lake and Colonial brand amphibious models.

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Pilot Magazine

| May 1, 2024

The devil is in the details

The FAA and NTSB both play important roles in the various legal processes triggered when the FAA pursues an enforcement action for alleged violations of the federal aviation regulations (FARs).

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Article

| February 8, 2024

2024 FAA GA activity survey underway

Government agencies and the general aviation industry use data from an annual survey to measure safety, make decisions on funding allocation, and assess the impact of GA on the U.S. economy.

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Pilot Magazine

| December 21, 2023

Medical certification and mental health

It’s an open secret that pilots underreport mental health issues and often refuse to seek treatment.

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Advocacy

| October 11, 2023

FAA updates policy on designee termination

The FAA policy that outlines management of representatives of the agency was updated to include further guidance on termination procedures—now instituting a panel review prior to termination of a designee.

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Advocacy

| September 27, 2023

Speak up for better convective forecasts

Pilots willing to spend about five minutes sharing their perspective on convective weather forecast tools in a survey will help the FAA and the National Weather Service determine which products pilots use, and optimize the offerings.

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Advocacy

| September 7, 2023

White House nominates Michael Whitaker as FAA administrator

Michael Whitaker, who has spent more than three decades in aviation leadership positions, has been nominated by the White House as the next administrator of the FAA.

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FAA Information and Services

| August 1, 2023

The FAA and our Constitution

We all know from grammar school that the main body of the Constitution creates three branches of government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. This begs the question: Where does the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fit in?

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Video

| July 25, 2023

Pilot education video collaboration launches

AOPA and the FAA are teaming up to help pilots steer clear of regulatory trouble with their certificate.

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Pilot Magazine

| June 26, 2023

A strong focus

By Rep. Sam Graves

General aviation underpins the U.S. aviation sector as we know it. GA airfields across the country have given more Americans than ever the opportunity to fly.

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Advocacy

| June 13, 2023

VFR charting changes for wind turbines coming soon

The FAA is implementing changes to make wind turbine farms more visible on VFR sectionals, VFR terminal charts, and helicopter route charts—to go into effect on or around August 10.

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Pilot Protection Services

| June 1, 2023

Court Is Open !

On April 14, the United States Supreme Court decided Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. Fed. Trade Comm’n, a case addressing whether district courts have jurisdiction to hear certain challenges to administrative agency action. The consolidated appeal decided two cases.

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Article

| April 4, 2023

How was your flying last year?

The FAA’s forty-fifth annual General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey is open and collecting information on the GA fleet, hours flown, and the ways people used GA aircraft in 2022.

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Advocacy

| March 16, 2023

En route IFR charts to have limited foreign information

The FAA announced March 9 a change in the amount of foreign information provided on en route low altitude charts.

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Advocacy

| January 12, 2023

Charting changes cause concern

Recently announced charting changes have blindsided pilots and provoked outcry on social media. The FAA clarified some changes with a revised notice that came largely as a result of discussions with AOPA.

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Article

| January 11, 2023

Notam outage halted air traffic

An overnight failure of the FAA system that distributes notices to air missions snarled air travel on January 11, and left pilots unable to access critical information before flight. A national ground stop was lifted just after 9 a.m. Eastern time, about 8 hours after the incident began.

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Article

| November 30, 2022

FAA weather camera webinar

The FAA Weather Camera Program is an expanding network of cameras designed to make general aviation safer. Pilots, air traffic controllers, and others in the aviation community can use the cameras for preflight planning and making that critical go/no-go decision.

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Article

| July 7, 2022

Denver airport chief nominated to lead FAA

The White House confirmed on July 6 that Denver International Airport CEO Phillip A. Washington will be nominated to become the next FAA administrator.

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Article

| March 28, 2022

FAA names acting administrator

Outgoing FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, an airline industry veteran who announced in February he will depart at the end of March, will be replaced on an acting basis by another airline industry veteran: Billy Nolen, a relatively recent agency hire with a long history in executive roles supporting airline safety.

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