Aviation News

Most people think of drones as annoying little buzzing quadcopters. Don’t say that to the Griff Aviation Guardian, a 160-pound working drone that can lift its own weight and then some. At the AUVSI Xponential show in Dallas, Griff was showing a prototype and AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli shot a video describing it. view on YouTube

As trade shows go, AUVSI’s bash—held this week in Dallas—is bigger than AEA, but smaller than NBAA. But it’s a lot more glitzy than either of those. When Intel—that’s $60 billion a year Intel—shows up to play on stage, they open their checkbook. Walking the show floor, there is so much stuff and so many […]

BVLOS or beyond visual line of sight is a desperate goal for the drone industry. But LiPo batteries and tiny electric motors aren’t going to do that. But there are plenty of engine makers out there working on hybrid and heavy fuel solutions. At AUVSI Exponential, AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli looked at four examples. view on […]

The ICON A5 that crashed on Monday morning, killing two company employees, including the highly respected aerodynamics engineer and test pilot Jon Karkow, was seen maneuvering low-level at cruising speeds seconds before the accident. Peter Knudson, public affairs officer with the NTSB, told AVweb that a witness saw the aircraft flying 30-50 feet above the […]

While drones can’t get spatial disorientation and don’t have to worry about seeing a runway in low visibility, weather could still be a significant problem for them in the delivery business. That was at least one sentiment expressed at a technical panel on the technology of drone delivery at AUVSI Xponential in Dallas this week. […]

The fourth Cessna Citation Longitude jet flew for the first time last Saturday and joined the test fleet, Textron Aviation said this week. The jet has a fully configured interior, which will be used to evaluate fit and finish as well as environmental controls, pressurization and other cabin technologies. “In addition to further systems testing, […]

State and local governments continue to struggle with sensible, much less consistent, regulation of unmanned aircraft systems, according to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. Speaking at the AUVSI Xponential 2017 conference in Dallas this week, Huerta said the FAA is has made understanding what state and local governments want and need to regulate drone operations a […]

At last year’s Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International show in New Orleans, the association announced, with flourish, that this year’s convention would be called Xponential 2017. And so it is. The sentiment is obvious and justified, given the apparent growth and potential for unmanned systems. AUVSI’s current catch phrase is: All Things Unmanned. I’d […]

In case you haven’t noticed, computer chipmaker Intel is big on drones and automation in general because it wants to sell the chips that will power those devices. But according to Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, it’s not so much the gadgets themselves that are important, but the data that they’ll generate and how it will […]

The restored B-29 Doc made its airshow debut on Saturday, in the Defenders of Liberty Airshow at Barksdale Air Force Base, in Louisiana. “What was really special for us, we were able to meet up with a B-52 in flight, over Oklahoma,” Josh Wells, spokesman for Doc’s Friends, told AVweb this week. “That was majestic. […]