Business & Military

The last Martin Mars water bomber, the world’s largest piston-powered prop plane, may have fought its last fire officials said this week. The British Columbia government has cancelled a standing contract to have the aircraft available to fight fires in the province. The airplane, which can skim a lake and pick up more than 7,000 […]

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking to build a “reusable hypersonic aircraft” capable of speeds beyond Mach 10 to deliver payloads of up to 5,000 pounds into low earth orbit for less than $5 million per launch. DARPA will more fully explain the project in October, but for now is seeking to […]

Former FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has been awarded one of aviation’s most prestigious prizes. Blakey is the 2013 Wright Trophy winner, bestowed annually by the National Aeronautic Association to a living American who has given…significant public service of enduring value to aviation in the United States. Since ending her five-year term as FAA administrator in […]

Boeing flew an F-16 without a pilot for the first time last week, the company said on Tuesday. The Air Force plans to use the modified aircraft as a target drone for weapons testing and other aerial training. So far, six of the retired airplanes have been modified into the Full Scale Aerial Target, or […]

The first FAA-approved commercial flight by an unmanned aircraft launched in the Chukchi Sea, above the Arctic Circle, on Sept. 12, the FAA said on Monday. The flight “went off safely and without a hitch,” the FAA said. A ship chartered by ConocoPhillips carried four Insitu ScanEagle UAS to conduct marine-mammal and ice surveys required […]

An Aviation Rulemaking Committee is expected to tell the FAA this week that the use of certain electronic devices in airline cabins should be allowed, The New York Times reported on Monday. The new guidelines, which would likely take effect next year, according to the Times, would allow passengers to use their tablets to access […]

Lufthansa and two leasing companies have placed orders at a combined total of roughly $19 billion (not including discounts) for large jets that don’t yet exist in Boeing’s line-up, the 787-10 and the 777-9X. The jets currently exist only as computer designs. Planned production of the 787-10, which will be the largest of the Dreamliner […]

China is expecting to lead the region’s demand for new commercial pilots as it takes delivery of more than 5,500 aircraft over the next two decades, and its current pilot population may already be stretching work hours to meet demand, so changes are likely coming. China’s civil aviation had a shortfall of 10,000 pilots in […]

The Air Force, through Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh, has publicized an account (perhaps the first) involving the engagement of an F-22 Raptor and Iranian F-4s flying within 16 miles of an MQ-1 Predator drone as the UAV flew over international waters off the coast of Iran. Welsh delivered the account Tuesday, saying the […]

The stretched version of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, the 787-9, can carry 290 passengers (40 more than the 787-8) over a greater distance and took its first flight, Tuesday, at Boeing’s Paine Field in Everett, Wash. The jet landed with no significant squawks and is ready to continue flight testing this week without the need to […]