The Scissortail Brief | May 11–17, 2026

This week, the Flight Safety Foundation's Business Aviation Safety Summit wrapped up in Provo with the DCA midair front and center. Hal Shevers, the founder of Sporty's Pilot Shop, passed away at 90. NBAA released a new member guide on aircraft acquisitions and backed a flight training modernization blueprint. Fuel prices held near their decade high. And the NTSB released its preliminary report on the April 30 Cessna 421C crash near Wimberley. It may be outside the traditional BizAv focus of the Brief, but the flight was being conducted in the course of business, and it practically happened in my back yard.

Read on, BizAv family, and travel safe this week, wherever business aviation takes you.

Safety: Flight Safety Foundation BASS 2026

The 71st FSF Business Aviation Safety Summit ran May 5-6 in Provo under the theme "leading safety through culture, innovation, and practical solutions." Moderator David Belastock of Bechtel set the tone early: everyone in a flight operation is a safety leader, and cultural change is an evolution, not a destination.

NTSB Vice Chairman Michael Graham delivered the keynote on the January 29 Reagan National midair. His through-line: "respect the unexpected." More than 50 safety recommendations came out of the final report, and many of the contributing factors had been known for years without action..

Day two included a flash talk on GPS jamming and spoofing. The threat profile has expanded in the past 18 months.

The FSF gave its 2026 Business Aviation Meritorious Service Award to Keith Clark of Phillips 66 Aviation.

In Memoriam: Hal Shevers

If you’re involved in general aviation at any level, you’ve bought something from Sporty’s. Hal Shevers, founder and longtime chairman of Sporty's Pilot Shop, passed away May 12 at his Florida home. He was 90.

Shevers started Sporty's in 1961 selling portable aviation radios out of the trunk of his car after graduating from Purdue in mechanical engineering. He built one of the first three-day ground school courses in the early 1960s, traveled the country in general aviation aircraft to teach it, and eventually turned that work into Sporty's Academy, a Part 141 school that has trained more pilots than most people could count.

He was inducted into the NAFI Hall of Fame in 2007 and helped develop Clermont County Airport into a functioning GA hub. Sporty's is employee-owned and says it remains committed to his original vision.

Blue skies, Hal.

NBAA: New Acquisition Guide and Training Modernization Support

Two items out of NBAA this week.

On May 12, NBAA released a new members-only guide to aircraft acquisitions covering the tax, regulatory, and transactional considerations involved in buying a business aircraft. The guide addresses areas where complexity has grown recently, including tariff exposure on cross-border transactions, the 100% bonus depreciation provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill, and ownership structuring. It's available through the NBAA member portal and is the kind of resource that's useful to have in front of clients who are earlier in the acquisition process. For NBAA members, you can download the guide HERE.

On May 11, NBAA formally endorsed the National Flight Training Alliance's flight training modernization blueprint in comments to the FAA. The NFTA report calls for shifting Part 141 from a prescriptive, hours-based model to a competency-based system. NBAA's endorsement: the central premise is correct. For operators dealing with the pilot supply picture, this is a longer-horizon item, but competency-based frameworks have a track record of improving throughput without compromising standards.

Also worth tracking: the FCC's planned 2027 auction of Upper C-band telecommunications frequencies, which raises radio altimeter interference concerns for Part 91 and Part 135 operators. NBAA and NATA have already called on the FCC to apply its proven emerging technologies framework. That issue will get louder as 2027 approaches.

Advocacy: NBAA at the Florida Aviation Business Association Conference

On May 12, NBAA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Kristie Greco Johnson addressed the 17th annual Florida Aviation Business Association conference in Tampa. The message: local and regional advocacy groups are essential to how NBAA moves policy at the federal level. Johnson and NATA's Karen Mineau-Huggard delivered a Washington Update covering ATC modernization progress and the Upper C-band FCC issue, which has particular relevance for the density of bizav operations in Florida.

Fuel: Holding Near the Decade High

Fuel prices held roughly flat this week. The national average sits at approximately $7.91 per gallon across reporting FBOs as of May 17, in line with last week's $7.94. The Central region remains the low point at around $6.78. The April monthly average was confirmed this week as the highest retail FBO Jet-A price recorded in the past decade.

The wholesale Gulf Coast spot price has softened slightly from its peak, but the spread between wholesale and retail FBO pricing remains wide. No resolution is being projected on the Strait of Hormuz supply disruption, and the market is treating current pricing as the planning baseline.

Traffic: Week 19 Activity Report

Per ARGUS and WingX data through Week 19 (May 11-17), North American bizav activity is holding positive year over year, consistent with the trajectory that's held since January. The most recent published weekly figures, through Week 17 (April 20-26), showed North America up 3.5% year over year. Part 135 activity led operationally with a 4.5% increase, while Part 91 activity dipped 1.5%. In the aircraft category breakdown, large-cabin jets are the outlier: down 5.8% year over year, the only category in negative territory. Small cabin jets led at 7.9% growth, with turboprops up 5.2% and midsize up 2.7%.

ARGUS Senior VP Travis Kuhn flagged the pattern plainly: "Large cabin activity was off in North America, European growth slowed down much more than expected and activity in the Middle East remains off about 50% from normal."

The large-cabin softness is the number to watch. It's the segment most sensitive to corporate discretionary spending and equity market conditions, and it's the segment that includes the clientele driving whole-aircraft ownership decisions. Two consecutive months of year-over-year declines in that category, against a backdrop of overall North American growth, suggests the bifurcation between the broader bizav market and the top end is becoming more defined.

The Middle East remains structurally suppressed, down roughly 49% year over year per ARGUS. WingX noted tentative signs of stabilization this week, with regional fuel uplift recording its strongest week-over-week reading since the conflict began in late February. It's one week of data. Full Week 19 actuals will be published by WingX and ARGUS in the coming days.

Community: STXBAA Golf Classic Benefiting HigherVets

Three Texas aviation organizations came together on May 14. The South Texas Business Aviation Association hosted its annual Golf Classic at The Bandit Golf Club in New Braunfels in partnership with HigherVets, and South Texas PAMA sponsored the after-party at Krause's Biergarten. STXBAA, HigherVets, and South Texas PAMA on the same day, for the same cause.

HigherVets is a veteran-founded nonprofit with a direct mission: help military service members transition into careers in business aviation. The organization works through support programs, professional training, and partnerships with aviation companies that are actively hiring veterans. Their goal is to place 10,000 veterans in business aviation careers, connecting the leadership and technical skills that come with military service to civilian opportunities across the industry. Group-based programs are central to the model, built so that no veteran transitions alone.

South Texas PAMA has been working the maintenance side of the same problem. The chapter's signature golf tournament supports A&P scholarships and workforce development, and its scholarship program has put money directly into the hands of students working toward their A&P certificates across Texas. PAMA has been dedicated since 1972 to promoting professionalism and recognition of aviation maintenance technicians through education, communication, and support of continuous improvement in aviation safety.

Put the three organizations together and you get a pretty clear picture of what the Texas bizav community is trying to do: build the pipeline on both the flight operations side and the maintenance side, with veterans as a priority population. Two weeks after the NBAA Maintenance Conference put the workforce shortage on the table in New Orleans, the South Texas chapter went to work on it at a golf course in the Hill Country.

If you weren't at The Bandit on the 14th, you can still support HigherVets at highervets.org. South Texas PAMA's scholarship and membership information is at southtexaspama.com.

Weather Brief: Lower 48 Outlook (New This Week)

Starting this week, the Brief includes a standing weather section with a quick regional synopsis for operators planning trips across the contiguous U.S. We'll keep it practical: what's moving, where it's going, and what it means for flight planning.

This week's picture, valid through roughly May 20-22:

An amplifying upper-level trough is digging from the western to central U.S., setting up a multi-day severe weather and flash flood threat across the Plains and Midwest. A slow-moving cold front and dryline are drawing Gulf moisture northward ahead of the system. Expect convective activity from the Texas Panhandle through Kansas, Nebraska, and into the upper Midwest through mid-week. Turbulence and airspace avoidance routing are the primary concerns for north-south and transcon operations through the corridor.

The southern High Plains are under extreme fire weather concerns today into Monday, with low relative humidity and elevated winds. Smoke and haze are a visibility concern at lower altitudes across eastern New Mexico and west Texas.

Higher elevations in Wyoming, the Front Range, and the Wasatch are seeing heavy wet snow through Monday. Mountain obscuration and icing are in play for anyone transiting those areas below FL180.

The eastern U.S. is running well above average on temperatures, with summer-like heat extending from the Southeast into the Mid-Atlantic. Convective buildups are possible along the eastern seaboard in the afternoon hours, particularly over Florida and the Carolinas. Smooth air at altitude; it's the departure and arrival windows to watch.

The West Coast is relatively quiet, with a storm system moving ashore in the Pacific Northwest bringing rain and lower ceilings to the Seattle and Portland areas through mid-week. The Southwest is transitioning from early-season heat toward more seasonable conditions.

The NWS 6-10 day outlook for May 17-21 favors above-normal temperatures across most of the lower 48, with the highest probability of heat concentrated in the Southeast. Above-normal precipitation is favored for the majority of the country. Below-normal precipitation is favored along the West Coast, particularly northern California, and from the Mid-Atlantic into the Carolinas.

Bottom line for operators: the Plains and Midwest corridor is the week's primary challenge. Build in flexibility on routing for any legs transiting that airspace Monday through Wednesday. The rest of the country is manageable with standard summer planning.

Safety: NTSB Preliminary Report on the Wimberley Crash

The NTSB released its preliminary report this week on the April 30 crash of a Cessna 421C near Wimberley, Texas, that killed all five people on board: pilot Justin Glen Appling and passengers Hayden Dillard, Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, and Stacy Hedrick. They were Amarillo Pickleball Club members traveling to a tournament in New Braunfels.

The aircraft departed Amarillo at approximately 9:10 p.m. and crashed around 11 p.m. in a wooded area off Round Rock Road northwest of Wimberley. The aircraft was destroyed by a post-impact fire. The preliminary report confirms the aircraft broke apart in flight before impact.

Here's what the report says happened:

During the flight, Appling reported to Houston Center that his pitot heat system was not working and that his airspeed indicator had iced up. He told controllers he was using backup gauges and requested a descent to lower altitude to try to get into warmer air. He was cleared to descend to 4,000 feet. Over the final 15 minutes of flight, the aircraft was operating in temperatures between approximately minus 2 and minus 6 degrees Celsius, conditions favorable for moderate icing including supercooled water droplets. His last radio transmission came at 10:59 p.m., about a minute before the crash. Flight tracking data shows the aircraft made several erratic maneuvers in its final minutes, including a near 180-degree turn.

The pilot had received his private certificate 14 months before the crash, in February 2025. He earned his instrument rating in June 2025 and his multi-engine rating three weeks after that, in July 2025. The NTSB retained the wreckage for further examination.

The investigation is ongoing and the preliminary report doesn't establish probable cause. That determination comes in the final report, which typically takes 12-24 months. But the preliminary findings put three threads on the table: an inoperative pitot heat system in known icing conditions, loss of primary airspeed information, and a pilot with 14 months of certificate history flying a pressurized twin at night in IMC with degraded instrumentation. The NTSB will work through all of it.

Our condolences to the families and the Amarillo community.

That's The Brief

The Wimberley preliminary report and the BASS keynote arrived in the same week, which made the safety culture conversation unavoidable. Hal Shevers leaves a legacy that shows up every time a new pilot opens a ground school course. NBAA's acquisition guide is a useful resource for anyone advising clients on transactions right now. Large-cabin softness is the traffic trend to watch. And fuel is holding at levels that require continued attention to trip economics.

The Week in One Sentence: The NTSB's Wimberley preliminary report revealed an in-flight breakup after pitot heat failure in icing conditions flown by a pilot 14 months past his private certificate, the FSF BASS summit put the DCA midair's 50-plus recommendations front and center, North American bizav held positive year over year while large-cabin jets slipped 5.8%, and Sporty's founder Hal Shevers passed away at 90.