Aviation News

Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, announced yesterday (Oct. 14) it has received a $6 million award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to advance its flight autonomy program. The government funding will go toward installing Sikorsky’s ALIAS/MATRIX (Aircrew Labor In-cockpit Automation System) in a U.S. Army experimental fly-by-wire Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk […]

Skeptics maintain that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is an idea founded on—bovine excrement. Now the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has developed a technology that might prove them right. But not in the way they think. A report yesterday (Oct. 14) in the Michigan Farm News reveals that the DOE program, rather […]

Three Tampa-area general aviation (GA) airports are on the mend after suffering storm damage from Hurricane Milton in Florida. According to information released today by Tampa International Airport (KTPA) and the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, Peter O Knight Airport (KTPF), Tampa Executive Airport (KVDF) and Plant City Municipal Airport (KPCM) all suffered damage extensive enough […]

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) reported last week that the FAA’s safety figures for the fiscal year 2024 ending Sept. 30 include an initial total of just 37 fatal accidents for aircraft registered in the Experimental category—well below the FAA’s “not-to-exceed” figure of 46. The numbers include 29 fatal accidents involving homebuilt aircraft, five for […]

Nigeria’s government sent its wealthy elite scrambling for their checkbooks on Monday when it threatened to clip their mostly N-registered wings. The country imposed import duties in 2023 on the 60 or so mostly large-cabin foreign-registered bizjets favored by its oil and banking moguls. So far, most of them have ignored the law, but after […]

A New Zealand company flew back-to-back flights in a rocket-powered drone it hopes will be the vanguard of routine access to space. Dawn Aerospace’s Mk-II Aurora flew two sorties to 63,000 feet and Mach .95 on Sept. 27 to demonstrate the quick turnaround of the aircraft. “Rapid reusability has been termed the ‘holy grail’ for rocket-powered […]

The Space Force is taking its X-37B space plane for a high-tech dump run that it’s billing as “groundbreaking innovation as it conducts national security missions in space.” In a rare news release about the hypersecret mission of the X-37B, the Space Force said it will employ aerobraking to rapidly change orbits using the drag […]

Police in Sonoma, California, are looking for a persistent would-be airplane thief who failed to make off with two aircraft on Sunday morning. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said that about 9:30 a.m. the man tried to get in a light aircraft that was idling as a mechanic worked on it. The mechanic “kicked the […]

A Chinese student at the University of Minnesota has been sentenced to six months in federal prison after authorities found pictures of navy ships under construction on a drone he abandoned near a Norfolk shipyard. But what authorities couldn’t determine is whether Fengyun Shi had anything to do with a spate of drone incursions over […]

Three European airlines have protested an AD they say will prevent their pilots from having a decent in-flight nap. On Oct. 8, the FAA issued a final rule for the AD that will require flight deck seats on most Boeing 787s to be modified to limit the amount they can recline. The agency says that […]