News

A small boomerang-shaped aircraft that will go for a test launch later this year could be the first unmanned aerial system to glide over the surface of Mars, if NASA’s project comes to fruition. The Prandtl-m prototype’s test, one of three in the planning stages, will include a launch from a high-altitude balloon at about […]

Pipistrel cancelled plans to symbolically fly its Alpha Electro electric-powered training aircraft over the English Channel on Tuesday after Siemens, the supplier of the motor, issued a “demand not to fly over the water with their motor,” said Pipistrel CEO Ivo Boscarol in a statement (PDF). Boscarol said his company’s flight has been in the […]

A high-flying entrepreneur came down to earth in a Calgary jail cell late Sunday after his multi-balloon publicity stunt ended with a parachute drop into the western Canadian city. Daniel Boria, 26, was charged with mischief endangering life after he attached a “$20 lawn chair” to 110 helium-filled balloons with the intent of skydiving from […]

A father and son aboard a Cessna 150 were killed when their aircraft was reportedly “broadsided” by an Air Force F-16 over Moncks Corner, South Carolina, on Tuesday. The F-16 pilot, Maj. Aaron Johnson, ejected and was not hurt. The jet crashed in a wooded area and nobody on the ground was hurt. The NTSB […]

Six pilots, the latest graduates of Able Flight’s training program, will receive their wings during a ceremony July 21 at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh. This year’s class includes a pilot who was born without hands or feet, two who are quadriplegics, one who is a paraplegic, a deaf pilot and a wounded veteran. From mid-May […]

The sight of an otherwise normal-looking light twin flying around the patch with no one in the cockpit has just put a new spin on unmanned aerial systems. Aurora Flight Sciences of Virginia announced it completed a series of test flights of its Centaur Optionally Piloted Aircraft in June as part of a project with […]

Austria’s Hannes Arch won the fourth stop on the Red Bull Air Race tour in hot conditions on the course over the Danube River in downtown Budapest. Arch beat second place finisher and points leader Paul Bonhomme, of the U.K., by two-tenths of a second on a course that started with aircraft flying under the […]

Well, as the BBC reporter in the posh British accent says in the accompanying video, it was only a matter of time. The first U.S. Aerial Gran Prix was held in L.A. a couple of months ago and now the loosely organized “sport” of drone racing (UAS racing just doesn’t have the ring) is exploding. […]

A 12-year-old boy suffered a gashed head but there were no other injuries when a banner-towing aircraft made a forced landing on a crowded California beach on a sunny July 4th. FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told media outlets the Super Cub lost power and the pilot headed for the beach. Cellphone video shows a normal […]

A remote spit of land on New Zealand’s South Island will soon become a space launch site for Rocket Lab, which plans to offer low-cost launches for satellites using a smaller, specially designed rocket. The site is slated for completion by the end of the year and target markets will include universities and small startup […]