Interesting Airplanes

John Travolta’s Boeing 707 is the gift that keeps on taking and he likely won’t be making a farewell trip to Australia in the plane this November. Travolta, who has owned the aircraft since 1998, has donated it to Historical Aircraft Restoration Society in Albion Park, about 100 miles south of Sydney. The plan was […]

Boeing’s next generation 777X project suffered a setback on Thursday when a door blew off during pressurization tests. There were no injuries in the mishap, which occurred on the static test plane, an aircraft that is shrouded by protective and structural metal superstructure to put massive stress on the airframe, sometimes to the point of […]

After a 22-minute flight into the history books, Franky Zapata says he needs a break. The colorful Frenchman crossed the English Channel on the jet-powered hoverboard he invented on Sunday. It was his second attempt. He tried the same feat on July 25, the 110th anniversary of Louis Bleriot’s first flight over the 30-mile shipping […]

The next generation of autoland systems may not require any ILS signals to guide them. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich have equipped a Diamond DA42 with a system called C2Land that allows the aircraft to visually acquire the runway and then calculate a glideslope to put it on the numbers. Because the computer […]

Boeing has told shareholders its 777X likely won’t fly by the end of the year as planned because of issues with the GE9X engine. However it isn’t adjusting its late 2020 delivery projections for the aircraft and the first revenue airplane for Lufthansa is off the assembly line. The GE9X is the largest and most […]

French inventor Franky Zapata says his flyboard used in an attempt to cross the English Channel on Thursday worked perfectly but he’s going to get a bigger boat for the next attempt. The former competitive jet ski champion was trying to cover the 30-mile stretch of water on the 110th anniversary of Louis Bleriot’s first […]

At AirVenture 2018, Opener was an attention getter at the Innovation Showcase with its fixed wing all-electric VTOL aircraft. With over 23,000 miles flown and plenty of funding, the company is moving closer to certification. For an update on the project, AVweb’s Ashley Anglisano caught up with Opener’s President Ben Diachun and project director Alan […]

Franky Zapata’s jet-powered hoverboard has progressed from the shaky-looking platform that wobbled over water only in its first flight to serious consideration for use by the French military. The former jet-skiing champion dressed up as a futuristic soldier, complete with rifle, for a dynamic performance in front of dignitaries that included a smiling and clapping […]

The bane of search and rescue personnel is the unintentional ELT activation but officials in Portland had to admit they were intrigued with the result of a three-day search for a bogus signal earlier this year. They found their quarry in the rafters of a brew pub after the ELT in a 50-year-old Canadian-registered Cessna […]

Airbus is testing a scale model of an A321 with “flapping” wingtips it says may lead to lighter and less draggy wing designs. The AlbatrossOne remote control aircraft has been fitted with semi-aeroelastic hinges on the wingtips. The hinges allow the tips to move in response to wind gusts and turbulence, reducing stress on the […]