When it comes to describing the workforce situation, General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) president and CEO Pete Bunce is plaintive: “Our industry is sucking wind.”

The industry has struggled to fill factory floors, engineering desks, and especially maintenance shops. And, while the pipeline is better, pilot positions remain a concern.

Jordan Belfort seems like a readily identifiable New York type. Good-humored, fast-talking, hair-confident. Popular at weddings.

But Belfort transcended the type in a singular way, to say the least, by embarking on a life so improbable and transgressive that even the highwire act Tommy Chong said it would make a great book, which became The Wolf of Wall Street; a life so excessive and full of incident that no less an auteur than Martin Scorsese would turn the ribald memoir into a blockbuster movie in 2013; a life that translated so easily into a sui generis burlesque of the American dream that Belfort would become something of a household name.

California's Santa Monica Airport (SMO), both historically important and a key part of the National Airspace System (NAS), will close at the end of 2028, the FAA said following two weeks of negotiations between city leaders and the agency. Somewhat sooner, possibly within a year, the city of Santa Monica, which owns the 227-acre airfield, will cut the 4,973-foot runway down to 3,500 feet, effectively eliminating access to the larger jets that currently fly there.

Before the surprise settlement, the city and FAA had been embroiled in multiple lawsuits, with the city council and its airport commission firmly arguing for closing the airport while the FAA and pro-airport proponents repeatedly pointed out that after World War II, the city had signed an instrument of transfer to keep the airport open in perpetuity.

While the founders of Azure Flight Support have been in the FBO game for more than 40 years, the company has only had that name for about the past four years. David Augustin and Allen Howell founded Corporate Flight Management (now Contour Aviation) back in the early 1980s and established an FBO at Nashville-area Smyrna Airport (KMQY).

Along the way, they added two more Tennessee locations, at Crossville Memorial Airport (KCSV) and Cleveland Regional Jetport (KRZR), before divesting from Corporate Flight and rebranding the FBOs as Azure Flight Support in 2019.

Drew Limsky, a nationally recognized business, lifestyle, and transportation writer—and an eight-time lead editor—has been tapped to be the editor of BJT. He has contributed to the magazine since 2020 (writing about such locales as Bora Bora, the Amalfi Coast, and the Côte d'Azur), joining BJT full-time on January 1 to work with former Editor Jeff Burger, who retired last week after working at the publication for two decades.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worked with such a professional, inclusive, and collaborative team,” Drew said, “and my colleagues’ knowledge about the private aviation industry is encyclopedic—and peerless.”

While most eVTOL aircraft developers have committed to either purely battery-electric or hybrid powertrains, Alaka’i Technologies believes that hydrogen fuel cells offer the best solution for sustainable, emissions-free air transportation. The company is developing a four-passenger, hydrogen-powered eVTOL, dubbed Skai, with an initial range of 200 miles. A subsequent larger version of the aircraft will be able to fly twice as far, it said.

Alaka’i, which unveiled the Skai concept in 2019, has already built three full-scale prototypes of the multicopter vehicle and has been conducting routine hover flight tests for the past few years at its hangar facilities at Minute Man Air Field, a small airport near Boston, where the company has set up a liquid hydrogen fueling station.

It is time to review the impact of taking dietary supplements while flying under FAA and DOT regulations. Many pilots take unregulated supplements. While this is seemingly a harmless activity for the general population, for pilots it brings additional risks.

Please keep in mind that dietary supplements are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). When a product is being researched to become a “medicine,” it must go through the intensive FDA approval process.

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