News

The U.S. Patent Office has accepted Airbus’ design for shipping-container-style loading of passengers on aircraft. The company’s prolific patent department put forth the “aircraft pod concept” in 2013 to pre-load passengers in detachable cabin sections to minimize turnaround time on the ground. It was just accepted by the Patent Office last week. As depicted in […]

The one-of-a-kind E-Volo volocopter came outside for its first flight tests recently, the company announced in a news release today. The volocopter was controlled remotely, and the crew tested for automatic altitude control and position hold, and automatic landing. Weights of about 265 pounds were placed in the cockpit to test for payload capacity. The […]

A UH-60L Army helicopter crashed Monday evening while flying in Fort Hood Range in Texas, killing all four crew members on board. Fort Hood officials said emergency crews found the wreckage after an “extensive search” of the northeast portion of the range. The crew, assigned to 2nd Battalion, 291st Aviation Regiment, First Army Division West, […]

An aerospace company’s new study on the hazards of toy drones mixing with manned aircraft concludes that the safety risks are greater that those of bird strikes. The study (PDF) from Aero Kinetics, “The Real Consequences of Flying Toy Drones in the National Airspace System,” concludes that rotorcraft pilots are at the highest risk of […]

The testing of Tecnam’s upcoming P2012 airplane now includes FADEC engines developed by Lycoming. The Italian aircraft manufacturer announced this week it has installed iE2 engines on the test aircraft, which is slated for a first flight in mid-2016. The P2012 Traveller, a twin-engine, 11-seat, fixed-gear airplane, is undergoing tests of the fuselage and wings. […]

An Mi-8 helicopter crashed on a frozen river in Siberia Thursday, with at least 10 reported dead and 15 injured. Rescue crews with snowmobiles are at the site, about six miles from the Igarka airport, with two Mi-8 helicopters heading there carrying doctors and rescuers, according to The Siberia Times. Passengers reported that the crew […]

Severe icing and malfunctioning instruments led to the crash of a Cessna Citation in Kansas two years ago, the NTSB said in its probable cause report this week. The 1975 Cessna 500 Citation I was at 15,000 feet when it began a high-speed descent and crashed in a field, killing the pilot and single passenger […]

Burt Rutan’s latest aircraft prototype, the SkiGull, took a first flight this week from Coeur d’Alene airport in Idaho. The documentary film team following Rutan’s work posted photos on Facebook, saying the flight lasted for about 90 minutes with test pilot Glenn Smith, who reported that “the plane was responsive, predictable and fun.” Rutan’s 47th […]

Lockheed Martin has moved a step closer to FAA certification for its hybrid airship design, the company said last week. Lockheed worked with the FAA’s certification office in Seattle for more than a decade to develop a plan to allow a nonrigid hybrid airship to operate as a commercial aircraft, since the FAA had no […]

A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 was shot down Tuesday near the Syrian-Turkish border by air-to-air missiles fired by Turkish F-16 fighter jets, officials said. Various accounts have disputed whether the aircraft was above Syrian or Turkish territory at the time, and a U.S. official, speaking off the record to the Los Angeles Times, said if the […]