Business & Military

The nation’s first FAA-approved package deliveries by unmanned aerial system – a sign of things to come – took place Friday as a series of short test flights that took medicine to a rural health clinic in Virginia. The event, conducted by NASA’s Langley Research Center and Flirtey Inc., an Australian company, demonstrated the potential […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news worldwide found the first U.S. Vans RV-12 dealer, new avionics for experimental aircraft from Guardian Avionics and Garmin, and a reorganization for Dallas Airmotive. Chesapeake Sport Pilot flight school has earned the first Vans RV-12 dealership in the United States. The new dealership agreement allows Chesapeake Sport Pilot to sell […]

Slow sales have Piper Aircraft planning a layoff this month that could affect up to 150 workers, the company announced Wednesday. Production will be scaled down for this year and next, resulting in the termination of 15 to 20 percent of its 750 employees, the company said. “Piper Aircraft has experienced steady recovery since 2009, […]

Lockheed Martin is working on an $8 billion deal to acquire Sikorsky, which went up for sale by parent company United Technologies Corp. last month, according to press reports on Monday. The deal could close within days, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sikorsky’s helicopter business would be a “growth engine” for Lockheed, according to […]

Even as it ponders the fate of its flagship A380 airliner, Airbus has reportedly filed patent applicationsfor an even larger design. Airbus hasn’t had a new order for the A380 in more than a year and now there are at least three used super jumbos on the market, further diluting the already-rarified market. That apparently […]

Jim Bede, who for more than 50 years designed airplanes, aircraft components and homebuilding kits, died Thursday in Cleveland, Ohio, after suffering an aneurysm. His company in Medina, Bedecorp, sells plans and kits for a series of aircraft including the BD-4B and BD-17. His early design, the BD-1 from the early 1960s, evolved into the […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news around the world found a first flight for Bell’s new helicopter, executive changes at Airbus Group, new helicopter services in Sedona, Arizona, and a milestone for Women in Aviation International’s scholarship program. Bell Helicopter announced the successful first flight of its new 525 Relentless. The maiden flight of the super-medium […]

When Louis Bleriot hopped across the English Channel from France in 1909, the Channel still represented a formidable, historic geographic and cultural divide that exists today only in the imagination; cross it on a ferry in a few hours or on commercial flight without even looking out the window. Or in an electric airplane with […]

A small boomerang-shaped aircraft that will go for a test launch later this year could be the first unmanned aerial system to glide over the surface of Mars, if NASA’s project comes to fruition. The Prandtl-m prototype’s test, one of three in the planning stages, will include a launch from a high-altitude balloon at about […]

Pipistrel cancelled plans to symbolically fly its Alpha Electro electric-powered training aircraft over the English Channel on Tuesday after Siemens, the supplier of the motor, issued a “demand not to fly over the water with their motor,” said Pipistrel CEO Ivo Boscarol in a statement (PDF). Boscarol said his company’s flight has been in the […]