Aviation News

United Airlines announced today (Dec. 13) it has booked a 200-plane order with Boeing, split evenly between 737 Maxes and 787 Dreamliners. The order is pegged at $43 billion and is said to support post-pandemic growth at the airline, replacing older, less-fuel-efficient aircraft. The Max order actually includes 44 aircraft that were included as now-exercised […]

Supersonic hopeful Boom Technologies has named its choice for an engine supplier for its 88-seat Overture Mach-busting airliner project. Florida Turbine Technologies, acquired in 2019 by San Diego, California-based Kratos Turbine Technologies, is best known for drone engines. It will be joined on the project by General Electric’s GE Additive division, a specialist in additive […]

UpNext, the innovation division of Airbus, announced last week it plans to be flight testing a Cessna Citation VII testbed with “morphing wing” technology in 2024. The developmental concept takes an aircraft’s complement of control surfaces to a whole new level, well beyond flaps, ailerons, slats and vortex generators. Similarly to how a bird can […]

Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce have signed an agreement with Virginia Tech to conduct research on the impact of environmental contaminants on aircraft engine operation and testing. Slated to last four years, the Virginia Tech departments involved in the project are expected to include Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering and Geosciences. The project was […]

Aurora Flights Sciences has received an award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to take its experimental X-plane through the next phases of the agency’s Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program. Aurora’s uncrewed X-plane concept uses an active flow control (AFC) system designed to supply “pressurized air to AFC effectors […]

NASA has finalized a contract with Boeing to continue the manufacture of core and upper stages for Space Launch System (SLS) rockets for the agency’s Artemis missions. According to NASA, the SLS Stages Production and Evolution Contract will cover production of the core stages for the Artemis III and IV missions, procurement of core stage […]

Lockheed Martin’s Orion space capsule is on its way to San Diego after a flawless re-entry and splashdown capped an almost equally successful shakedown mission around the moon. The ship, which will ultimately be used to carry astronauts to the moon and perhaps Mars, hit the surface of the Pacific off Baja Mexico at 12:40 […]

AOPA says the requirement for a Letter of Deviation Authority (LODA) for CFIs to teach in experimental aircraft will end with President Joe Biden’s signature on the latest defense authorization bill. The bill passed by the House on Dec. 8 contains the language necessary to end the paperwork exercise. “The bill is expected to pass […]

The Air Force has confirmed that a B-2 nuclear bomber caught fire after an emergency landing at the stealth aircraft’s home base of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Saturday. “A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit experienced an in-flight malfunction during routine operations today and was damaged on the runway at Whiteman Air Force […]

Col. Joe Kittinger, who held the record for the longest freefall for 52 years, died Friday (Dec. 9, 2022) in Florida at the age of 94. He is survived by his wife Sherri. Kittinger was an Air Force captain and pilot who did three high-altitude parachute jumps from a gondola suspended from helium balloons in […]