News

During the flight from Dusseldorf to Barcelona immediately prior to the fatal crash on March 24, Germanwings first officer Andreas Lubitz repeatedly reset the A320’s altitude to 100 feet while alone in the cockpit, according to a preliminary report (PDF) released Wednesday by the French BEA safety board. Lubitz didn’t activate a descent, but the […]

Cirrus Aircraft will likely announce a new delivery center in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Wednesday. Tennessee officials, including Gov. Bill Haslam, have invited media to a news conference at McGhee Tyson Airport near Knoxville to reveal “a significant economic development announcement.” It’s unlikely the announcement has anything to do with aircraft production as new facilities and […]

Organizers are calling this Friday’s flyover of the nation’s capital “one of the most diverse arrays of World War II aircraft ever assembled,” with 56 aircraft in 15 historically sequenced formations flying 1,000 feet above the National Mall to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. The formations will […]

NASA has successfully flown a remotely piloted aircraft powered by 10 electric motors that can take off vertically, then rotate its wing and tail surfaces and fly like an airplane. The aircraft, which weighs about 62 pounds, has a 10-foot wingspan, with eight motors on the wings and two on the tail. “During the flight […]

Continental Motors Group said today that it will purchase Danbury Aerospace, a group of aviation manufacturing companies that includes Engine Components International, the San Antonio, Texas-based manufacturer of PMA engine parts. Danbury is a privately held company and the dollar amount of the deal wasn’t disclosed by Continental. Because Continental is itself owned by the […]

As part of its investigation into several events when airplanes landed at the wrong airports, the NTSB told the FAA this week it should amend its ATC procedures. “Controllers [should] withhold landing clearance until the aircraft has passed all other airports that may be confused with the destination airport,” the NTSB said. Also, software that […]

The electrical systems on Boeing 787s need to be shut down and restarted before they reach 248 days of continuous power, the FAA said on Friday, to prevent a “loss of all AC electrical power, which could result in loss of control of the airplane.” The airworthiness directive was issued “straight to final rule,” without […]

NASA says it has successfully flight-tested wings that can change shape in flight without seams or gaps and is calling it a next-generation breakthrough in aircraft design. In cooperation with the Air Force and FlexSys Inc., the developer of the system, NASA mounted the morphing wings on a Gulfstream bizjet and put it through its […]

Is truly autonomous flight for aircraft—manned or not—lurking just around the corner? It depends on how you define around the corner, but some people in the autonomous flight field think it could be a reality within a decade and electric propulsion will both hurry it along and play a major role in its development. Sanjiv […]

With few moving parts compared to an aircraft piston engine, electric motors are thought to be far more reliable. But when the systems that control them are factored in, the reliability picture is far less rosy, according to Mike Ricci, who says electric propulsion in general has some distance to cover before it will be […]