Search Results for: skunk works

Mike Busch, master aircraft mechanic and CEO of Savvy Aircraft Maintenance Management, introduced his first book during a forum at EAA AirVenture on Wednesday. “Manifesto: A Revolutionary Approach to General Aviation Maintenance” sets forth Busch’s minimalist, reliability-centered, cost-efficient philosophy of aircraft maintenance and ownership honed over 40 years of experience as an aircraft owner, maintenance […]

As a journalist, Ive come to recognize a certain look when I ask a victim…err, I mean, a source, a question I know is going to be sensitive. If the question is getting close to pay dirt, the person suffering the interview adopts a certain Cheshire cat look that implies to me: if only I […]

Thank goodness there are passionate and determined owners of vintage aircraft in this world. Due to people such as Joe Shepherd, the lives of we who are crazy about flying machines have been vastly enriched because we get to see the results of their passion fly rather than gather dust. Shepherd owns, and regularly operates, […]

I was looking through the archives the other day to see when we did our first serious coverage of electric aircraft. It was 2009; five years ago this summer. We imagined then that production versions would be trickling to market in a few years. They arent. But thats not to say theres not interesting progress […]

Piper chose the Aero show two weeks ago to unveil its new diesel-powered Archer DX for good reason. The work on the conversion was done at Continental/Technifys skunk works at the Altenburg airport, a former East German military base where Thielert did all of the original test flying for its initial certification of the Centurion […]

The title usually goes to another man, but Ed Lovick was the first radar signature reduction expert brought in by Kelly Johnson’s Skunk Works. In his 32 years there, he proved instrumental in the success of the A12, a predecessor to the SR71 Blackbird, and his achievements on the F117 Nighthawk may have yet to […]

Teledyne Continental says it’s bullish on piston-engines that burn Jet A and today in the company’s Mobile skunk works, it took the wraps off the project for a group of visiting journalists. It’s a 230-HP four-cylinder, four-cycle design that’s readily scalable to a six-cylinder version with up to 350-HP, a power range that will clearly […]

Pictures of a mysterious secret drone flown by the U.S. military have been circulating around the Internet for months now (click here and here), and this week the U.S. Air Force confirmed that it is flying a new unmanned aerial vehicle called the RQ-170 Sentinel. The online images show what appears to be a squat […]

The Air Force Research Laboratory and Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works have, on June 2, flown their Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA), which they say “has the potential to change aircraft manufacturing as we presently know it, for the better.” ACCA program manager Barth Shenk’s words reinforce that the aircraft itself isn’t designed to be a […]

One problem for future SSTs, though, is restrictions on supersonic flight over land. Aerion says it will comply with the current rules by cruising at Mach 0.98 over the U.S. In other parts of the world where rules require that the boom can’t reach the ground, Aerion can comply while flying as fast as Mach […]