Aviation News

Nobody who attended Uber’s Elevate conference this week — or watched the live online stream — would come away thinking it’s going to be easy to create autonomous flying taxis, but there’s a good chance you’d be convinced it’s doable. If nothing else, the corporate names were impressive — this wasn’t just enthusiasts and academics […]

Uber drew lots of attention this week with their three-day Elevate conference about how to create an urban network of flying taxis by 2020, but as ambitious as their goals are, John Langford, the CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences, says they are “doable.” The vision won’t come to pass, though, he told AVwebin an interview […]

John Langford, CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences, attended Uber’s Elevate Summit in Dallas, and offers his take on what it will take to make urban electric VTOL transport a reality. Duration: 14:03 File Size: download here

The whole idea of flying cars has come to symbolize the imagined future that never arrives, but Uber’s Elevate Summit on Tuesday made clear that aviation’s serious players are serious about this technology, and it’s coming soon, and it’s going to be game-changing. “This industry is going to be successful faster than anyone thinks … […]

Beechcraft’s King Air twin turboprop has long been popular, with more than 3,000 built since the 1960s, but that doesn’t make it invulnerable to market forces — and a weak international market has driven down deliveries in the first quarter of this year to just 12, compared to 26 in the same period last year, […]

You’ve probably heard the term “silo’d” as management consultant-speak for an organization that operates with multiple independent entities that don’t talk to each other. At AVweb, we don’t quite fit that definition but we have a certain intentional insularity. Thus, over the weekend, when I saw early Saturday morning the story of yet another airline […]

A new vehicle revealed on Monday by Kitty Hawk Corp., the aircraft company led by CEO Sebastian Thrun, takes off and lands on water and qualifies for sale as an ultralight, the company said. “Your flying dreams will never be the same,” says the company website. “The Kitty Hawk Flyer is a new, all-electric aircraft. […]

Lilium Aviation, of Munich, says it has flown a prototype of its all-electric VTOL tilt-engine aircraft that the company says will fly 160 knots in horizontal thrust configuration with a range of 180 miles. A video provided by the company of the first flight shows the aircraft, with what looks like a spacious automotive-style cabin, […]

At the Sustainable Aviation Symposium, AVweb spoke with Pipistrel’s modest Director of Research and Development, Tine Tomažič. Dr. Tomažič received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ljubljana and has been with Pipistrel for 16 years as an intern, test pilot and engineer. We spoke with Tine about what electric aircraft can (and […]

In the last few editions of Wind Tunnel, we looked at how changes to the surface of an airplane’s skin can affect the aerodynamic performance of the airplane. We have seen that judicious use of tape to seal and smooth the skin can significantly reduce drag, and that ice, even in relatively small amounts, can […]