Business & Military

A new vehicle revealed on Monday by Kitty Hawk Corp., the aircraft company led by CEO Sebastian Thrun, takes off and lands on water and qualifies for sale as an ultralight, the company said. “Your flying dreams will never be the same,” says the company website. “The Kitty Hawk Flyer is a new, all-electric aircraft. […]

Lilium Aviation, of Munich, says it has flown a prototype of its all-electric VTOL tilt-engine aircraft that the company says will fly 160 knots in horizontal thrust configuration with a range of 180 miles. A video provided by the company of the first flight shows the aircraft, with what looks like a spacious automotive-style cabin, […]

Uber has attracted dozens of speakers from the aviation industry, government and technology sectors to a large summit on “urban air transportation” in Dallas this week. The Uber Elevate Summit kicks off Tuesday and features speeches and panel discussions on the promise and problems of having fleets of electric VTOL aircraft buzzing around major cities. […]

Humans love to look for stuff and, in fact, can’t seem to stop once started. The quest for the next bright shiny object is probably coded into our DNA, a vestige from some primeval organism that slithered out of the muck not yet sentient enough to feel the burning need to fly airplanes, but just […]

Wright Electric, a San Los Obispo-based startup, aims to make every short commercial flight electric within 20 years by building what co-founder Jeff Engler calls their “electric 737.” Wright’s vision is a 150-seat, short-haul aircraft capable of serving routes under 300 miles. Engler told attendees at the Sustainable Aviation Symposium that Wright was inspired to […]

The first airline customer for Aireon’s space-based ADS-B tracking services will be Malaysian Airlines, Aireon reported in a press release issued this week. Aireon is placing ADS-B receivers on Iridium NEXT low earth orbit communications satellites, which will receive location reports from ADS-B Out equipped aircraft and relay that position to end users through Aireon […]

A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter was on a routine training flight with three crew on board when it crashed on a golf course in Maryland Monday afternoon, killing one pilot, CNN has reported. One survivor was in critical condition, and the other was in serious condition, according to the U.S. Army. The flight had launched from […]

The Air Force moved quickly last week to quell concerns that it would force pilots to stay in uniform beyond their agreed-to separation dates. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told an event in Washington last week that’s not currently an option to stem the exodus of pilots to the airlines. “I want […]

The union representing Jet Airways pilots has ordered its Indian pilots to refuse to work with non-Indian pilots and has demanded the airline fire all non-native cockpit crew. Jet has about 100 non-Indian captains (who are presumably also in the union) and the National Aviators’ Guild is demanding they be purged from the airline. According […]

What a difference a year makes. A year ago, almost to the day, we were excoriating Icon for its lopsided buyer contract that made draconian sound like an upgrade. In the midst of a beat down by the press, Icon circled the wagons at Sun ‘n Fun, conducted tight-lipped interviews, if any at all, and […]