News

Incentives for biofuel development in the new “fiscal cliff” bill — also known as the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012” — could help the industry to move forward in 2013, advocates say. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, provisions in the bill should lead to “a year of growth and milestones for the advanced […]

Virgin Galactic is on track to send a test flight into space this year, although tourist flights are not expected to start until 2014, according to recent news reports. An article in the January issue of IEEE Spectrum says Richard Branson expects to be aboard a flight into space by the end of this year. […]

click for larger version – and directions to make your own James May, known as Captain Slow on the popular Top Gear BBC program, recently shared his design for an “ultimate” paper airplane, complete with winglets and elevons, created from a sheet of standard A4 letter-size paper. “It’s a sort of cross between a Vulcan […]

Amidst the tension of the economic discussions in Washington on New Year’s Day, the Senate was busy confirming the nominations of political appointees and Michael Huerta was one of them. Huerta, who has held the post of acting administrator since former Administrator Randy Babbitt stepped down more than a year ago, was among dozens of […]

An American-registered Dassault Falcon 900 took off from an Iranian airport Monday about three weeks after it had made an emergency landing. According to The Associated Press the aircraft was on its way to Rotterdam from Abu Dhabi in early December when a technical fault forced a diversion to Ahvaz in southwestern Iran. There was […]

China’s aviation technology gap may have closed somewhat in recent days with announcements of some breakthroughs that may make it less dependent on the West for stuff it needs to advance its aerospace industry. Just after Christmas, photos were “leaked” of what appears to be the country’s most ambitious aircraft to date, the Y-20 transport. […]

Buried in all the statistics that surface at this time of year when analysts try to determine what, if anything, the activity of the previous year says about how things will be in the coming years is this grim fact: Only one new airport opened in the U.S. in 2012. The forward-thinking folks of Stockton […]

For the first time in a decade, Boeing is the number-one planemaker in the world, selling and delivering more airplanes than Airbus in 2012, according to the Seattle Times. The company delivered about 585 commercial jets over the year, its highest total ever. Orders also were up, including about 1,000 commitments to buy the new […]

Although early reports of a fatal Tupelov 204 crash in Russia cited pilot error as the likely cause, investigators now are saying the airplane’s brakes or thrust reversers may have failed. “After landing, the pilot used all the available brake systems on the plane, but for some reason the machine did not stop,” a member […]

One of the cool things about being a Web-only publication is that we can tell at a glance what our readers considered the most popular of the thousands of items we served up in 2012. In recent years, that’s been spectacular video, and this year is no exception in the top spot. Another video (and […]