Experimentals

Since I’m not the guy for writing apologias for anything, I have to be honest about this: Every year I walk through the main gate at Sebring’s Sport Aviation Expo, I wonder if this show has enough economic momentum to survive for another year. For those accustomed to the size and energy of Oshkosh or […]

It’s been my good fortune to work and socialize with a number of test pilots during my career. There has been a lot of publicity and hype about test pilots ever since the Montgolfier brothers made the first flight of an aircraft in 1783-some of it has even been true. My own perspective is that […]

FlyEco has been working on and testing its Smart Diesel for light aircraft. The diesel is adapted from the European version of the Mercedes Smart Car. AVweb took a brief flight demo in the aircraft recently. view on YouTube

In previous installments of this short series (in Kitplanes magazine), we have discussed the importance of planning your first flight thoroughly, and then preparing yourself for the flight-test environment with specific training. Let’s assume then that you have a good plan and have also “warmed up” your flying skills to be ready for the unexpected. […]

Transport Canada just released some proposed guidance on the commercial operation of light unmanned aerial systems. Drones. If you haven’t had a chance to look it over, here’s the link (PDF). I suggest at least skimming it. (I’ll wait while you do that.) Clearly, our friends north of the border have come adrift from reality […]

Heavier-than-air Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) flight has been around since not long after the Wrights began wowing the world with airplanes. The first (horribly unstable) quadcopters flew in 1907-however, the desire for a device to lift humans straight up into the sky and whisk them elsewhere is probably as old as conscious thought […]

Solar Flight has released plans for the SunStar, a solar-powered airplane designed to act as an unmanned telecommunications platform, able to remain in flight for months at a time. Eric Raymond, president of Solar Flight, said, “What we are designing is known as an atmospheric satellite, which operates and performs many of the functions as […]

It hasn’t been a quiet week in aviation news-our survey uncovered certification testing of the Falcon 7X at the world’s highest airport, SAFE Teacher Grant Awards, a big sale of Embraer E175 jets and a company that’s developing a way to surf behind an airplane. The long-range Falcon 7X will soon become the first business […]

Aerion is making a multi-million dollar bet that the world needs a supersonic business jet, and it’s developing one for delivery in 2021. AVweb’s editorial team shot this update on the project. view on YouTube

When I was at the Pipistrel factory in Slovenia last April, the techs were patiently amused while I wrapped a wing-mounted GoPro camera with a safety layer of duct tape. I’d stuck the thing under the wing with the standard GoPro 3M pressure sensitive base. “You know,” one of them said, “we never do that. […]