News

The former maintenance hangar at the Fantasy of Flight aviation attraction in Polk City, Florida, will reopen to the public soon to display some of Kermit Weeks’ aircraft collection, including a 1944 B-24 Liberator, the museum announced this week. The opening day is tentatively set for Saturday, Dec. 6. Meanwhile, Weeks said the next evolution […]

The space probe Philae made a successful landing on a comet, the European Space Agency announced Wednesday, despite a malfunction in the probe’s anchoring system. After a seven-hour descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, signals indicating that the probe had touched down were relayed via the Rosetta orbiter craft to stations on Earth, including […]

The pilot of SpaceShipTwo, which crashed Oct. 31 in the Mojave Desert, told investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board he was unaware the feather system had been unlocked early by the copilot, theNTSBsaid this week. Peter Siebold, who is recovering from his injuries in the crash, told investigators Friday he was unaware of the […]

Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures has signed a lease with NASA to rent the historic airship hangar and other buildings on Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, citing aviation research as one goal for the site. The company will pay about $1.16 billion over a 60-year lease for use of about 1,000 acres, including three hangars […]

NetJets has flown its first paying customer in China. NetJets announced its intention to do business in China years ago and put a foothold in the country earlier this year. It made the announcement about the charter customer flight and a new arrangement with MedAire at Airshow China in Zhuhai. NetJets, which is doing business […]

The proposed rules for integrating unmanned aerial systems into the national airspace may be published before the end of this year, according to a report in the National Defense Industrial Association blog on Tuesday. The rules “will open the door to a lot of commercial operations that aren’t authorized today,” according to Jim Williams, manager […]

Bell Helicopter has flown its 505 Jet Ranger X for the first time, the company announced this week. “The Bell 505 performed exactly as anticipated today,” Yann Lavalle, senior flight test pilot for the company, said on Monday. The 30-minute flight, at the company’s facility in Mirabel, Quebec, comprised two laps around the pattern, a […]

Chinese officials flew their J-31 twin-engine stealth fighter in public for the first time at this week’s Zhuhai airshow, and said they plan to market the airplane globally as a lower-cost alternative to the Lockheed Martin F-35. “It is our dream to break the monopoly that foreign countries have on new-generation jet fighters,” said Li […]

Just months after resuming production at its Kerrville, Texas, factory, Mooney International has unveiled two new models, both diesel-powered and both aimed at the global training market. Surprisingly, rather than riveted metal, the company said the new aircraft — the M10T and M10J — will be of composite construction. The company made the announcement at […]

The new version of Eastern Air Lines, based in Miami, is recruiting cabin crew this month, to be ready for a start of operations early next year, the company said on Friday. “This is another important step as we prepare to launch the airline,” said CEO Ed Wegel. “We are eager to move forward.” The […]