Aircraft Upgrades

Pipistrel has several new all-electric and hybrid products in the works, Tine Tomazic told AVweb at the CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium, in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Friday, and the new powerplants offer substantial savings over conventional models. A new battery pack for the Taurus electric G2 will boost power by 33 percent. Also, a converter […]

An array of experts in a variety of aircraft technologies, from batteries to aerodynamics to photovoltaics, are gathering in Santa Rosa, Calif., for this week’s 7th annual CAFE electric-aircraft symposium. Representatives from NASA, IBM, Pipistrel, MIT, UCLA, and more, are convening to share the results of their latest research and contribute to creating the next […]

General Aviation Manufacturers Association President Pete Bunce said Wednesday at Aero in Friedrichshafen that the international regulatory community has seen the light on revising certification rules and efforts to overhaul Part 23 and its international equivalents are gaining momentum. “When you can go and put modern equipment into an amateur-built aircraft and have it perform […]

Cirrus COO Pat Waddick said at Aero in Friedrichshafen on Wednesday that its first public unveiling of the Generation 5 SR22 aircraft was done in Europe for a reason. The company now considers Aero as its primary spring show and the official start of the selling season. Although the company remains committed to some U.S. […]

Solar Impulse, the one-of-a-kind solar-powered airplane from Switzerland, flew above the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on Tuesday as the crew prepares for a flight across the U.S. next month. The aircraft took off from Moffett Field about 7 a.m. with Bertrand Piccard at the controls and flew above the bridge at about 3,500 […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to watch on YouTube. As part of an annual festival to encourage its engineers to develop creative ideas, Hyundai recently exhibited a “flying car” based on a quad-copter design. The aircraft has four sets of four propellers, with […]

The chairman of the Chinese company that bought Cirrus Aircraft says the next version of the company’s SF-50 Vision Jet will be rolled out before the end of this year and certification flight testing will begin in 2014, Meng Xiangkai told the South China Morning Post. Meng also said China Aviation Industry General Aircraft (CAIGA) […]

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta says Boeing “has completed all required tests and analysis” of fixes for battery problems suffered by its 787 Dreamliner, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, but no decision had yet been made to clear the jet for flight. Huerta also noted that the FAA has not yet determined whether it will […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to watch on YouTube. Pipistrel’s much anticipated Panthera four-place GA aircraft had its first flight April 4 and continues testing in Slovenia. The all-composite aircraft flew for 54 minutes from the airport at Cerklje ob Krki where the […]

The existence of a Pilatus jet project has been discussed in the European press since at least 2011 and Pilatus has confirmed its plans to show a mockup of its twinjet design, the PC-24, at EBACE, Geneva, this May. Earlier reports had forecast that deliveries of the new jet would reach customers by 2015 for […]