Aviation News

Textron Aviation’s single-engine turboprop, the Beechcraft Denali, made its first flight Tuesday (Nov. 23) from the company’s west campus at Eisenhower International Airport in Wichita, Kansas. With senior test pilot Peter Gracey and chief test pilot Dustin Smisor at the controls, the prototype took off at approximately 8:20 a.m. for the two-hour, 50-minute flight. The crew tested […]

Rolls-Royce announced on Monday that it has reached a key milestone in its Trent XWB–84 program with the delivery of its 1000th Trent XWB–84 turbofan engine. The Trent XWB–84 entered service in 2015 and has logged over eight million engine flying hours to date. According to the company, assembly of 1,000 Trent XWB-84s has “required […]

Jim Richmond, who founded CubCrafters in 1980, passed away peacefully at age 67 on Sunday (Nov. 21) surrounded by his family at his home in Yakima, Washington. Current President and CEO of CubCrafters Pat Horgan said, “Our employees, customers, and affiliates all feel Jim’s loss. In everything we do moving forward, Jim will be with […]

Swiss researchers say they’ve figured out a way to make jet fuel out of thin air using solar power and can get the cost to as little as $5.25 a gallon. Digital Journal is reporting the researchers say they can make “solar kerosene” by extracting carbon dioxide and water from air and cracking it using […]

Rolls-Royce is claiming the record for the world’s fastest flight by an all-electric aircraft after its Spirit of Innovation hit a maximum speed of 387.4 MPH in a series of flights on Nov. 16. The aircraft, an electric version of the Nemesis NXT kit racing plane, is Rolls-Royce’s test bed for electric technology and is […]

An opinion piece in Forbes Magazine suggests the controversial rollout of 5G cell service will be pushed back a month or more over concerns about possible interference with radar altimeters. The column, by Ike Brannon, a fellow at Jack Kemp Foundation, says the rollout “may have to wait until after Christmas.” The switch was supposed […]

The Air Force and Space Force have sent a not-so-subtle YouTube message to countries messing with the U.S.’s various global sandboxes that includes what appears to be a sneak peak of a drone dubbed Son of Blackbird. Near the end of a short video extolling the Air Force’s intelligence capabilities, the slickly produced video cuts […]

Boeing has told the FAA that some of the composite structures of its Boeing 787 aircraft have been contaminated with Teflon and might not be as strong as they were intended to be. The information is contained in an internal FAA memo reviewed by the Seattle Times and is the latest in a long list […]

Turboprop, business jet and helicopter deliveries increased while piston airplane shipments dropped slightly during the first nine months of 2021, according to the third-quarter (Q3) 2021 general aviation aircraft shipments and billings report released by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) on Thursday. Turboprops saw the biggest jump, increasing 40.6 percent from 254 units as […]

The pilot and sole occupant of a single-engine Air Tractor AT-802F was killed when the aircraft went down during a nighttime firefighting mission near Colorado’s Estes Park on Tuesday. The aircraft, which was owned by Co Fire Aviation, departed from Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL) in Loveland a little before 6:15 p.m. local time on […]