FlightCentral

(SMART SUMMARY) The FAA on Tuesday launched a new mobile version of its website, providing access to various features that are useful to pilots.

(SMART SUMMARY) Pipistrel this week launched a fuel-efficient Virus-SW914 on a mission to circle the world and study the climate.

(SMART SUMMARY) The FAA has reversed its recent decision to ground the pilots of Operation Migration, and will allow them to finish a flight leading whooping crane chicks to Florida from Michigan, the New York Times reported on Monday.

(SMART SUMMARY) A federal judge has ordered an Alabama man to forfeit his AD-4N Skyraider after siding with the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch of the Department of Homeland Security that the Vietnam-era close support aircraft was illegally imported to the U.S. ICE is turning the Skyraider over to the Navy for display in the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.

(SMART SUMMARY) A Green Beret demolitions expert who twice had explosives confiscated by the TSA before he tried to board airliners over the holidays has been released to the supervision of his superiors at Fort Bragg on $50,000 bail.

(SMART SUMMARY) A combination of good weather, good equipment and maybe a little good luck resulted in little more than some wet clothes for two Alabama residents who ditched off the coast of the Bahamas on Saturday.

(SMART SUMMARY) Hawker Beechcraft, which is suing the Air Force over its plan to go with a Brazilian aircraft for its proposed light attack and support aircraft, has ramped up the publicity campaign to get back in the running.

(SMART SUMMARY) Lana Sator may be something of a real-life Lara Croft (played in the film Tomb Raider by Angelina Jolie), in that she managed unauthorized access to very unique places -- in this case, a Russian liquid-fueled rocket plant.

(SMART SUMMARY) Singapore Airlines and Qantas have found "small cracks" in the wing-rib feet of at least three of their Airbus A380 super-jumbo aircraft;

(SMART SUMMARY) A fiery hot air balloon crash in New Zealand Saturday morning killed 11 people, making it the country's worst aviation accident in more than 30 years.

(SMART SUMMARY) The FAA believes lithium batteries can pose a threat to flight safety and bans them from the cargo holds of passenger aircraft, which carry fire suppression systems, but that's not the case for cargo aircraft and the disparity is not sitting well with cargo pilots.

(SMART SUMMARY) Microsoft shut down the group responsible for its popular Flight Simulator X (FSX) in 2009 and by 2010 announced that a new game, "Flight," was in the works -- now it says that game will arrive this spring and it will be free (with limits).

(SMART SUMMARY) This week's winning photo comes from Dave Leedom of Escondido, CA.

(SMART SUMMARY) This week's winning photo comes from Terry Gleason of Albany, OR.

(SMART SUMMARY) Taking up the slack from our holiday week, "POTW" storms into 2012 with a one-two punch of reader-submitted photos!