Business & Military

Airbus’ new Mobile, Alabama, plant completed its first jet last week, commemorating the milestone with a maiden flight of the A321 that will go to JetBlue. The $600 million plant, which Mobile announced in 2012, began operations last fall as Airbus’ first U.S. manufacturing site. The site, which Airbus expects to help fill demand for […]

The military will put F-35 Lightning II fighters on a series of summer airshow tours this year in an effort to gain some good publicity for the jet program, which has been saddled with budget and technical problems. The Air Force Heritage Flight Foundation will display the fighter during its show season, starting with Luke […]

Spitfires are often associated with the Royal Air Force, but they were operated by many countries. The Historic Flight Foundation near Seattle pays tribute to that heritage with its restored Czech Air Force Mk. 9E Spit. view on YouTube

The first FAA-sanctioned drone delivery in a built-up area occurred in Hawthorne, Nevada, two weeks ago and Flirtey, the company behind the milestone, says it plans more approved tests in more complicated environments in the near future. The test happened March 10 but was announced Friday. The eight-rotor drone autonomously flew a preprogrammed half-mile route […]

As part of AVweb’s series on aviation innovators, we spoke with Craig Barnett, who created the company, Scheme Designers. For nearly 20 years, Craig and Scheme Designers, have been creating unique paint schemes (and, more recently, vinyl designs) for aircraft. There are now more than 11,500 airplanes flying throughout the world with paint and vinyl […]

A 45-year-old man has been charged with two counts of felony vandalism and one of trespassing on an airfield after a pickup truck drove through a locked gate at Van Nuys Airport and rammed a Mooney parked on the ramp. In a statement, Van Nuys Airport spokesman Diana Sanchez said the incident occurred about 10:30 […]

The FAA is proposing that Cirrus’ new SF50 Vision be able to skip airborne testing of the whole-plane parachute as part of its certification. In a Notice of Proposed Special Conditions issued March 18, the agency says that since the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) is a “supplemental” safety system on the SF50 and not […]

A supersonic passenger jet inspired by the Concorde is under development in Colorado as a partnership between startup firm Boom and Virgin Galactic’s manufacturing arm, The Spaceship Company. Boom, founded by former Amazon executive and pilot Blake Scholl, wants to build a jet that can make a 3.4-hour round-trip flight from New York to London […]

AVweb‘s search of news in aviation found announcements from the National Air Transportation Association, Air Orlando Sales, Bell Helicopter and Women in Aviation International.The National Air Transportation Associationannounced the rollout of new Student and College Chapter membership programsdedicated to providing students with resources, access to experts in the field and networking opportunities that will benefit […]

As the inevitable autonomy of everything looms just ahead, rock-star entrepreneur Elon Musk had this to say at a recent development conference: “You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine. It’s too dangerous.” And that’s to say the driverless car visionaries don’t just want to offer you an autonomous vehicle, they’ll insist on […]