Airplane News: A320 hits Firetruck, FAA Extends Aircraft Registration, Lilium to 119M, Eco Caravan

This week in airplane news: A collision between an A320neo and an airport firetruck in Peru, The FAA is extending aircraft registration from 3 years to 7, eVTOL manufacturer Lilium hopes to raise 119 million, and finally the Hybrid Electric Eco Caravan's first flight. Welcome to your weekly Airplane News update, this week we have five stories for you, An unfortunate collision between an A320neo and an airport firetruck, the FAA extending aircraft registration to seven years, eVTOL manufacturer Lillium hopes to raise millions from investors, and the hybrid electric Eco Caravan made its first flight. Your first story this week is the collision of an A320 and an airport fire truck in Peru. The A320NEO was nearing V1 (Traveling at 127 mph) when the truck entered the runway, and was unable to avoid the truck. Unfortunately two firefighters were killed and one was injured. There were no serious injuries among those on the plane. It appears that the fire trucks were on a drill to determine driving time to one of the new runways at the airport. The second story this week is the FAA extending registrations to last for 7 years rather than three. In a statement the FAA said “The new rule applies to new registrations and extends the duration of current certificates. It covers all traditional aircraft and larger drones.” The extension in registration comes after some folks submitted applications for re-registration 5+ months in advance only for FAA back log to result in the registration expiring. This will apply to all Commercial and GA aircraft along with large drones. Your third story this week is the eVTOL Lilium aims to raise 119 million dollars. Lilium has partnered with a number of other companies such as Honeywell and Aciturri for funding in an effort to certify the Lilium Jet. For this, Lilium will need to complete its third demonstrator aircraft that will be used for testing. The fourth story this week is a hybrid electric Eco Caravan, which made its first flight. The aircraft flew near LA for 33 minutes and reached a maximum altitude of 3500 feet. The Eco Caravan is powered by an A03 Compression Ignition Engine rated at 410 kW and is integrated with a 160kW motor and battery packs. According to a company statement at EAA Airventure, the engine will deliver twice the thermodynamic efficiency of a comparable turbo prop engine. Testing during the first flight was primarily power testing and the pilot said “The Eco Caravan propulsion system performed just as expected,”. Finally, your last story this week is our Black Friday sale is going on right now. Our Private, Instrument, Commercial ground schools are $175 each, and check ride course is $49! Head over to pilotinstitute.com to sign up. That’s it! Have a great week and we’ll see you again next Friday!