Military Aviation

An Australia-based team led by Boeing presented its Loyal Wingman autonomous unmanned aircraft prototype to the Royal Australian Air Force on Tuesday. The aircraft, which is designed to “fly alongside existing platforms and use artificial intelligence to conduct teaming missions,” is the first of three prototypes headed for Australia’s Loyal Wingman Advanced Development Program. Ground […]

Airbus announced on Friday that it has successfully conducted the first-ever fully automated air-to-air refueling (A3R) operation with a boom system. According to the company, its A3R system was flight tested earlier in the year using an Airbus tanker with a Portuguese air force F-16 acting as a receiver. A total of 45 flight test […]

A week after Boeing indefinitely extended its layoff of 30,000 employees, it’s recalling about 2,500 of them and some will be at work on Monday. According to the Seattle Times, the workers will head back to plants carrying out defense projects and also those maintaining the hundreds of stored Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Critical lab […]

An unwilling and unwitting passenger in a high-performance fighter accidentally pulled the ejection handle during a retirement “gift” flight in France a little more than a year ago, triggering an investigation that revealed a sloppy approach to conducting familiarization flights.  As we reported last March, the man suffered back injuries when he mistakenly launched from […]

A U.S. Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II made an emergency landing “without its landing gear extended” at Georgia’s Moody Air Force Base on Tuesday. The pilot was uninjured in the incident and was released following an evaluation by flight surgeons. An emergency was declared in flight and the aircraft landed on Moody’s primary runway. According […]

While much of the attention was on other matters last week, one of the world’s aerospace companies was quietly created with the finalization of the merger of Raytheon and United Technologies. The result is Raytheon Technologies Corporation and with its broad scope of products and services and revenues of $74 billion a year, it will […]

The U.S. Army has selected Bell Textron and Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky to build prototypes for the second phase of its Future Attack and Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program. Other companies with FARA design entries included Boeing, Karem Aircraft and an AVX Aircraft-L3 Technologies team. Phase two will end with a flight test evaluation, which the […]

Textron Aviation’s defense arm will be supplying the U.S. Air Force with two Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverine turboprops, the company announced on Monday. Along with the aircraft, the $70.2 million contract will cover pilot training, engineering services and up to four years of contractor support. According to Textron, the AT-6 costs less than $1,000 per flight […]

Boeing unveiled its single-engine helicopter design for the U.S. Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) prototype competition on Tuesday. The unnamed thrust compounded single-main rotor helicopter features fly-by-wire controls, tandem seating, a six-bladed rotor system, a modular cockpit with a reconfigurable display and autonomous capabilities. Boeing has not announced expected performance numbers for the aircraft. […]

Russia is accusing Israel of using civilian airliners as shields to launch air strikes in Syria. The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that Israeli air force F-16s intentionally put an A320 with 172 passengers on board between themselves and Syrian anti-aircraft missiles as they launched eight air-to-ground missiles on positions held by pro-Iranian forces near […]