News

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced that two modified Global Hawk drones have demonstrated they can “safely and autonomously operate under in-flight refueling conditions,” but challenges remain. The tests actually took place several months ago, and DARPA researchers have been poring over data acquired during those tests to reach their conclusions. Researchers expected […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to download the video directly. The Whitcomb area rule, the supercritical wing, and winglets changed supersonic flight, modern jetliners and aircraft of all kinds, and are attributed to Richard T. Whitcomb, who will be posthumously inducted into the […]

The president of Jetlev Southwest, Dean O’Malley, flew (tethered to a floating powerplant and not without stops) over 26.2 miles of open ocean from Newport Beach California to Catalina Saturday, Sept. 29, to promote the company’s jetpack product. The promotional stunt aimed to set a record for longest jetpack flight. Jetlev manufactures a jetpack that […]

AOPA says it’s tapping an underused resource by offering some structure and incentive to build the flying club population in the U.S. In a podcast interview with AVweb, Adam Smith, head of AOPA’s new Center to Advance the Pilot Community, said there are about 650 flying clubs in the U.S. and the goal is to […]

AOPA President Craig Fuller says he’s puzzled by the reaction of three aviation companies to the organization’s move to modernize its flight planning product. In a Sept. 25 letter (PDF) to Fuller last week that was made public this week, the companies complained that AOPA was competing directly with them when it should be paying […]

LightSquared has filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to revive its broadband proposal without, it says, interfering with GPS signals. According to Broadcast Engineering, LightSquared, which went bankrupt last May when its first application was rejected by the FCC, says it would like to initially use a 5 MHz sliver of radio spectrum […]

A meticulously restored and rare 1934 De Havilland DH84 Dragon with six aboard went missing Monday northwest of Brisbane, Australia, and its wreckage was found Wednesday in bushland near Mount Kandanga, with no survivors. Weather conditions at the time of the aircraft’s afternoon flight, Monday, included low-level clouds. The restored aircraft was not equipped for […]

The FAA has extended an exemption that allows operators of certain small aircraft to be reimbursed for expenses, NBAA said last week. Operators must be NBAA members to qualify for the exemption, which allows for cost sharing in situations such as transporting a guest on a company aircraft or the use of an aircraft by […]

Boeing said this week it has sold 60 aircraft to Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes, a Brazilian airline, comprising the largest order ever from a single airline in South America. All 60 of the airplanes will be the 737 Max model, at a value of about $6 billion at list price. The 737 Max has new […]

The deliberate crash of a Boeing 727 will be the topic of a new Discovery channel program, Curiosity, which airs this Sunday night (9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central time). No airplane of this size has been crashed for science since 1984, according to the channel’s website, when NASA and the FAA crashed a Boeing […]