Business & Military

When the FAA reveals its new drone regulations, which are expected to be finalized as soon as next month, they will be easy to comply with and free, sources told The Wall Street Journal. The task force that met for three days last week is expected to recommend that registration will be required for all […]

The neutering of Chicago O’Hare, once not only the busiest airport in the world, but also the baddest, is nearly complete: The 2015 version of ORD has three control towers, half a dozen east/west parallel runways … and no character whatsoever. While a couple of the old diagonal runways escaped the bulldozers, they might as […]

New GA airplane shipments so far this year are down 6.5 percent over 2014, according to third-quarter numbers reported by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Piston airplanes led the decline with a 10.8 percent drop for the first nine months of the year, followed by turboprop airplanes, which were down 9.4 percent. Meanwhile, business jet […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news this week found milestones from high school and college students, a recent maintenance competition, and new research on “millennial pilots.” The Flying Musicians Association announced that its first FMA Solo Scholarship Award recipient, Drew Medina of Vero Beach, Florida, a senior in the Vero Beach High School Jazz, Symphonic, and […]

A researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has flight-tested a drone that can detect obstacles and avoid them in fight without any input from an operator, MIT said this week. Andrew Barry, a graduate student in the school’s artificial-intelligence lab, has tested the system in a tree-filled field at speeds of about 30 mph. […]

The industry task force convened to advise the FAA on its plan to require registration of most small drones got together today in Washington to figure out which of the millions of little aircraft to keep tabs on and how to do it without driving everyone crazy. And they need to do it by Nov. […]

The hypersonic Sabre engine under development by Reaction Engines has attracted an investment of about $30 million from global aerospace company BAE Systems, the companies announced on Tuesday, and they also said a $90 million research grant from the British government is expected to be finalized soon. The injection of cash will accelerate development of […]

Even as the FAA struggles to formulate drone regulations, Internet giant Google says it will begin delivering packages by drone sometime in 2017. David Vos, who leads Project Wing for Google’s parent, Alphabet, said the company is in discussions with the FAA to set up an air traffic control system for drones that would use […]

Somewhere in the not-that-distant past, the rollout of a new airliner morphed from a simple tow out of the hangar to polite applause into industrial theater with a cast of thousands. Give China’s COMAC—the government-owned consortium responsible for commercial aircraft—credit for nailing the theater part, albeit with a slight party twist not of the balloon […]

The first Chinese airplane designed for the large-airliner segment rolled out of the factory on Monday morning. The C919 jet, built by the state-run Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), can seat up to 168 passengers. COMAC said it has orders for 517 aircraft from 21 customers, most of them based in China. The jet […]