As Boeing pushed to provide airlines with more information on a background auto trim system on its 737 MAX, the head of one pilot union said it’s not necessary for pilots to know the details of every automatic system on an airliner and that they’re already adequately trained to handle runaway trim abnormals.

Following the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last month, the FAA is focusing new scrutiny on the control architecture of the Boeing 737 MAX and may require the company to engineer a fix for an auto trim system installed on the airplane. The system wasn’t well documented and reporting has revealed that pilots and airlines were unaware of it.

This week, AVweb’s news roundup found stories about new simulators for Central Washington University, the launch of a program for aspiring pilots, a training management system agreement for Jet2.com and flight data analysis software for Aeromexico.

This week's letters brought comments from readers about the recent crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX, Diamond's hybrid-electric multi-engine airplane, an air traffic controller who became incapacitated on shift, and the results of an investigation into a fatal C-130 accident.

The Naval Air Station at Belle Chase regularly uses New Iberia, LA (KARA) as a refueling stop. I was flying my Piper PA-32 into KARA to get fuel for myself and contacted the Tower...

The General Aviation Manufacturers Association will accelerate its efforts to work with European regulators to promote the development of electric VTOL aircraft, the association said this week. Thirty eVTOL experts from eight countries met with EASA, the European Commission and industry representatives over two days in Cologne and Brussels to discuss the future of the technology.

Italian aircraft manufacturer Tecnam announced confirmed orders for 30 aircraft from Chinese Anhui Lantian International Flight Academy (ALIFA) at the biannual Zhuhai International Air Show last week. The ab-initio academy will acquire Tecnam P2006T twin-engine trainers, as well as P2010 models to replace its fleet of legacy training aircraft.

Dornier Seawings reports having received approximately $170 million in funding from its Chinese shareholders to further develop the amphibious CD2 Seastar Flying Boat. The money will be used to prepare one of two prototypes for its first flight, which is now planned for the middle of 2019.

An FAA certification official said on Wednesday that Boeing 737 engine inlets might require design changes in the wake of a Southwest Airlines accident last April in which an uncontained engine failure breached the cabin and caused the death of a passenger. Testifying at an NTSB fact-finding hearing on the accident, another FAA official said it’s “not impossible” to set a life limit on engine fan blades.

Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences revealed a new solar-powered, autonomous high-altitude pseudo-satellite (HAPS) concept on Wednesday. The Odysseus is designed to be an ultra-long-endurance platform capable of performing research, communication, connectivity and intelligence missions.

WACO Aircraft Corporation has been acquired by Florida-based Dimor Group Inc. The acquisition also includes WACO’s FBO and Part 145 maintenance facility, Centennial Aircraft Services, which is located at Michigan’s W. K. Kellogg Regional Airport (KBTL).

Boeing kept airlines and pilots in the dark about an automated background trim system on the 737 MAX that may be implicated in the first crash of the new model in Indonesia last month. The trim system, which is meant to improve pitch characteristics and stall protection, wasn’t even described in any of the documentation provided to pilots on the new aircraft.

The Lone Star Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence and Innovation (LSUASC) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC) announced that it has signed an agreement with Texas’ Nueces County to provide drone support in the event of natural disasters.

A report released by the U.S. Air Force points to pilot error as the primary cause of an Air National Guard WC-130 Hercules crash that killed all nine servicemembers onboard. The accident occurred on May 2, 2018, shortly after takeoff from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) in Savannah, Georgia.

The first of three F/A-18B Hornets scheduled to join NASA’s research fleet arrived at the administration’s Armstrong Flight Research Center last week. The Hornet made the trip from the U.S. Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland to Armstrong, which is located at Edwards Air Force Base in California, in two days due to wind conditions.