News

Terrafugia has requested an exemption from the FAA to allow its Transition roadable aircraft to weigh up to 1,800 pounds and have a stall speed of 54 knots and still be classified as an LSA. The LSA rules set the maximum weight at 1,320 pounds and a maximum stall speed of 45 knots. “I think […]

Veteran balloon pilots Troy Bradley and Leonid Tiukhtyaev will head for Japan on New Year’s Day to wait for the right weather window to launch a trans-Pacific flight, Bradley told AVweb this week. “The earliest we would launch would be January 7,” he wrote in an email. “Our window is open through February 20.” The […]

Indonesian authorities reported Tuesday that a warship had recovered several bodies in the Java Sea confirmed to have been victims of AirAsia Flight 8501, which vanished on a flight from Surbaya to Singapore on Sunday. Indonesia’s Strait Times said late Tuesday local time that the corvette Bung Tomo reported that more bodies are expected to […]

The first flight of the KC-46 tanker test program was successfully completed on Sunday, Boeing and the U.S. Air Force have announced. The airplane, a Boeing 767-2C, took off from Paine Field, Washington, at 9:29 a.m. local time and landed three hours and 32 minutes later at Boeing Field. The jet is essentially a commercial […]

The search resumed at daybreak Monday for the AirAsia Indonesia A320 that disappeared from radar above the Java Sea early Sunday morning. So far, several sightings of floating debris and oil slicks in the region have been checked out and found not to be associated with the jet. Government officials said the search will expand […]

A joint effortby Cambridge University and Boeing has created a hybrid-powered version of a Czech single-seat motorglider. The aircraft is powered by a 10-kilowatt (14-horsepower) electric motor and a 7-kilowatt (10-horsepower) four-stroke gas engine that work together when lots of power is needed. The motor becomes a generator driven by the gas engine in low-power […]

There was plenty of weather along the route of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 early Sunday but nothing airlines that ply the busy air corridors over the Java Sea don’t regularly cope with. Weather officials said lightning strikes were recorded in the same area and at the same time the A320 with 162 people on board “lost […]

It was a big enough day for Nevada that the governor and a couple of congressmen were there to mark the occasion of the first flight of an unmanned aerial system at the state’s new test range and of course the digital cameras were rolling. Unfortunately the technology wasn’t quite up to the auspiciousness of […]

Much like the FAA’s Christmas-week safety campaign for those who received unmanned aerial vehicles as gifts, The UK’s aviation regulators sent the message (PDF) to consumers that disruptive or unsafe use of drones could result in hefty fines. The Daily Mail of London reported on Christmas Day that the Civil Aviation Authority said drone users […]

The B-29 Superfortress crash site in Lake Mead, Nevada, will once again be open to guided tours pending the selection of businesses to operate the dives, theNational Park Service announced on its website.The agency is taking applications for two business opportunities operating guided scuba diving at the wreckage. The historic site, now managed by the […]