Aviation News

Airbus Defense and Space has announced the successful landing of its first production Zephyr S High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) after a record-breaking 25 days, 23 hours and 57 minutes aloft. It was launched on July 11. The previous endurance record was a held by the Zephyr 7 prototype, which remained airborne for more than 14 […]

Honda Aircraft Company announced on Tuesday that it has begun deliveries of its new HondaJet Elite model. Honda introduced the Elite last May at a special hangar event ahead of the 2018 European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva, Switzerland. The Elite adds noise-attenuating structures for the engines, upgrades to the avionics, including […]

Former online flight sharing service Flytenow says that the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is standing in the way of flight sharing by opposing a Senate bill introduced in April by Senator Mike Lee of Utah. According to both AOPA and Flytenow, representatives from AOPA, NATA and NBAA held a conference call with Flytenow […]

Akka Technologies, a French engineering firm, pitched a futurist concept for a train-plane vehicle to Boeing and others last month at the Paris Air Show, according to Bloomberg News. Passengers would board a pod at a local train station, according to Akka CEO Maurice Ricci, then at the airport, a cockpit and wings would be […]

A nonprofit group searching for vintage aircraft in Greenland has reported they found the site of a P-38 wreck from the “Lost Squadron” from World War II, buried about 340 feet deep in glacial ice. Arctic Hot Point Solutions surveyed the area using new ground-penetrating radar mounted on drones. When the radar showed what they […]

NASA has announced the names of nine astronauts who will be among the first people to launch into space aboard commercially built spacecraft. After the initial test flights, crews will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) using the Boeing Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner and the SpaceX Crew Dragon. These missions will mark the […]

The pilot shortage is making itself felt in rising orders for new trainers, GAMA reported on Monday, in its shipments and billings report for the second quarter. Overall, the quarter’s results are mixed, said GAMA President Pete Bunce, but demand for training aircraft is driving up sales in both the piston and rotorcraft segments. Piston […]

Luminati Aerospace, an engineering and research firm based on Long Island, New York, says it has created technology inspired by flocks of geese that can achieve “perpetual stratospheric flight.” Luminati says groups of four solar-powered drones flying in a diamond formation can “overcome the limitations of current battery technology” by taking advantage of the vortices […]

Military rescue aircraft were orbiting the site of a plane crash on a remote Alaska mountain ridge Sunday, unable to reach the downed sightseeing aircraft and its five occupants because of bad weather. The pilot of a de Havilland Beaver operated by K2 Aviation reported the crash Saturday about 6 p.m. on his satellite phone […]

The Air Force is hoping to ease its pilot shortage by speeding up the training of new pilots using virtual reality simulators. The first class of 20 Pilot Training Next (PTN) candidates, 15 officers and five enlisted personnel, finished their course on Friday and 13 of the officers passed. Two officers washed out and were […]