Interesting Airplanes

French startup Beyond Aero has announced it flew a crewed LSA-sized demonstrator aircraft based on a ULA G1 using a hydrogen-electric propulsion system. It’s the first step in eventually creating a hydrogen-powered business aircraft. The little plane, dubbed the Bleriot, took off from Gap-Tallard, France, in early January with test pilot Paul Prudent at the […]

Piper has introduced its top-tier entry in the high-performance single world with the unveiling of the M700 Fury on Feb. 6. The Florida planemaker says the Fury cruises at 300 knots at up to 30,000 feet and features a HALO Safety System that includes Garmin Autoland. Base price is $4.1 million, but there are plenty […]

On Friday, NASA and Lockheed Martin displayed the X-59 QueSST (Quiet SuperSonic Technology), the agency’s latest X aircraft designed to break the sound barrier without generating a sonic boom. The aircraft was shown off at a ceremony hosted by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works at its Palmdale, California, research facility.  According to NASA, the X-59 QueSST is integral to […]

Cirrus is teasing a new product introduction on Thursday it calls “the next evolution of personal aviation,” but it won’t be saying what it is until the YouTube livestream starts at 7 p.m. EST that night. It’s widely speculated that it’s a new iteration of one of its current models, the next generation of the […]

An oddball piece of aerospace research history is up for auction by the General Services Administration. NASA’s Quiet Short-Haul Research Aircraft is being sold as is from the ramp at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California. The high bid is currently $10,001, but the plane was also built on a shoestring […]

A Silicone Valley defense contractor (yep) says it’s come up with a relatively inexpensive high-speed jet drone to counteract the drone swarms that are reshaping war half a world away. Both Ukraine and Russia are becoming increasingly reliant on pilotless kamikaze drones that can loiter invisibly for hours and pounce on unsuspecting targets with high […]

GippsAero, maker of the Airvan 8 utility aircraft, is returning to its Australian roots after founder and former CEO George Morgan bought out the shares owned by India’s biggest company. Since 2010 Mahindra Aerospace has been the majority shareholder in the company, which certified and began manufacturing the Airvan 8 in the mid-2000s. The partnership […]

A Virginia company may have created a new category for the burgeoning advanced air mobility sector when it flew its eSTOL hybrid electric Goldfinch on Nov. 19. The aircraft is powered by a “turbogenerator” that charges batteries to supply electricity to eight motors on the high wing. The motors provide blown lift over the wings, […]

A New Zealand company says it’s solved one of the biggest safety issues affecting amphibious aircraft operations. Paul Vickers, president of Vickers Aircraft, told AVweb the WAVE pusher amphib will not flip if the pilot forgets to raise the landing gear before a water landing. Vickers declined to discuss the flip-proof design in detail for […]

The highly classified B-21 Raider took its first flight on Friday and there was nothing secretive about it. The aircraft took off from Palmdale Airport in California on a bluebird day with hundreds of people watching from the roads ringing the airport. The stealth bomber that will eventually replace the B-2 Spirit is optionally piloted […]