Business & Military

Braille Battery announced the successful completion of a series of test trials on the company’s new customized lithium batteries for commercial drones (UAVs) last week. Braille says the trials demonstrated that its batteries provided “longer discharge cycles—with significantly less weight—than the incumbent battery,” although estimates of how much longer and lighter have not yet been […]

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) says that its Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification (MOSAIC) rulemaking initiative has made substantial progress after a meeting with FAA officials in Washington, D.C., earlier this week. EAA also met with the FAA during AirVenture to discuss MOSAIC, which is designed to “relieve builders of well-proven homebuilts of some of […]

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Roscosmos General Director Dmitry Rogozin met on Wednesday to discuss the status of International Space Station (ISS) operations after speculation that a leak detected onboard the station two weeks ago was possibly the result of sabotage. During the discussion, NASA says Rogozin informed Bridenstine that Roscosmos was establishing a commission […]

The United States Air Force has released the results of a branch-wide operational safety review, which identified a series of safety risks for Air Force flight crews. The report pinpointed stress posed by high operations tempos, a lack of time to properly focus on flying basics and decreased aircraft availability as potential safety concerns in […]

With Hurricane Florence heading for the Carolina coast, the FAA is warning unauthorized drone operators to stay out of the skies around areas impacted by the storm even if no Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) is in place. The agency emphasized that unauthorized flights during and after the storm could disrupt emergency response flights, which often […]

ForeFlight has announced that it is now providing mobile Pre-Departure Clearance (PDC) and Digital Automated Terminal Information Service (D-ATIS) at approximately 75 airports across the United States. To get PDC and D-ATIS via ForeFlight, owners need to register each of their aircraft specifically for the service through the ForeFlight app. Once an aircraft is registered […]

How about a wager? Which comes first, the FAA’s vaunted NextGen collapses in scandal and budget overruns or someone—anyone—actually launches a space tourist without turning him or her into a cosmic cinder? Although there’s a Voodoo doll with my name on it at 800 Independence Ave. and restraint has never been a long suit of […]

The European Aviation Safety Agency has adopted a new rule, known as the “Basic Regulation,” which updates the mandate of EASA and sets out more pragmatic methods to regulate the sector appropriately, GAMA said this week. “This lays the foundations for an EASA 2.0, the result of a mammoth effort from EASA, the EU institutions […]

A person with a microchip implant cannow pilot a swarm of drones by sending signals directly from their brain, an ability that also should work for full-scale aircraft, according to researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The technology was discussed at a recent symposium held by DARPA, in Maryland. “The signals from those […]

While most countries are taking a regulatory approach to VTOLs and other “flying car” technology, Japan is making their development a government priority. The Japanese government has been actively soliciting companies who have some skin in the point-to-point transportation game to develop a coordinated approach to help solve some daunting transportation challenges. According to TransportUp.com, […]