Business & Military

After first putting weight on wheels this spring, the Stratolaunch completed its first taxi tests over the weekend—steering from the cockpit and moving under its own power. Joe Sweat, one of the project’s test pilots, said of the event, “It was a lot less intimidating once we had it out there, in terms of how […]

After their plane crashed in the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan passengers aboard a West Wind Aviation ATR 42 spent about a half hour freeing themselves from the wreckage as local police and volunteers mustered a rescue effort. The aircraft carrying 22 passengers and three crew took off from Fond du Lac, a fly-in-only First Nations […]

A shadowy office deep in the Pentagon that investigates unexplained encounters by military aircraft with flying objects continues to operate even though its mandate was officially ended five years ago, according to The New York Times. The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program was a pet project of retired Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and spent $22 […]

Power was fully restored to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport early Monday but it will likely take aday for the airport to recover from the unprecedented electrical failure. Fires apparently took out both the main and backup power supplies resulting in more than 1,000 cancellations and stranding tens of thousands of passengers at Atlanta and airports […]

A piece of aviation history roared to life for the first time in a decade last week in an important milestone toward first flight. Crews at Basler Turbo Conversions in Oshkosh started the No. 1 engine in That’s All Brother, the C-47 that led 800 other aircraft in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. The […]

If, as Samuel Johnson is purported to have said, patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, perhaps the mercantilist parallel in the age of global commerce is a faded bumper sticker once popular around Seattle: If it’s not a Boeing, I’m not going. That, in part, seems to be animating the current tawdry mud […]

BAE Systems and the University of Manchester have flown a stealthy drone that has no movable control surfaces and therefore does not change shape at all in flight. The MAGMA drone uses blown air to change aerodynamics and allow three-axes control. The most obvious benefit from the innovation is that there is no deflection of […]

Aerion Corporation, promoters of the AS2 12-seat, supersonic business jet concept, have partnered with Lockheed Martin to explore development and production feasibility for the project. “Following our initial review of Aerion’s aerodynamic technology, our conclusion is that the Aerion AS2 concept warrants the further investment of our time and resources,” says Orlando Carvalho, executive vice […]

NASA says its engineers reached a major milestone this week, successfully testing the battery system that will power the all-electric X-plane expected to take flight next year. “This was an extremely critical milestone for the overall project,” said Tom Rigney, project manager for the X-57 Maxwell. “Without a safe battery system, we wouldn’t be able […]

There have been no reported fatalities in the crash of a regional airliner in northern Saskatchewan in Canada on Wednesday. The West Wind Aviation ATR 42 was carrying a total of 25 people when it went down just after takeoff from Fond du Lac, on a scheduled flight to Stony Rapids, also a remote northern […]