Recent Updates

NASA will be conducting a series of supersonic flights to gauge future community response to the noise signature of its Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator aircraft (LBFD). Since the contract for construction of the LBFD X-plane was only just awarded to Lockheed Martin at the beginning of April, the Quiet Supersonic Flights 2018 (QSF18) study will use […]

New bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives that, if passed, would authorize funding for the FAA until 2023. Unlike previous iterations, H.R. 4, called the “FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018,” does not include provisions for removal of ATC from FAA oversight. The bill is scheduled to go to the House floor […]

Southwest Airlines captain Tammie Jo Shults, 56, is being hailed as a hero for her deft and calm handling of an uncontained engine failure that damaged her Boeing 737 and claimed the life of passenger Jennifer Riordan on Tuesday. Throughout the emergency, Shults’ communications remained clear and direct as she diverted the plane to Philadelphia, […]

DG Flugzeugbau, a sailplane manufacturer in Germany, said recently it got an order to “manufacture a large number of Volocopters from Volocopter GmbH,” but nobody is saying exactly how many a “large number” is. A Volocopter spokesperson told AVweb, “Unfortunately, I am not able to provide you with more details than this,” and Flugzeubau did […]

HorizonX, the Boeing “innovation cell” that launched about a year ago, has invested in its first U.K. company, Reaction Engines Ltd., Boeing announced on Wednesday. Reaction is known for its “Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine” (Sabre), a hybrid engine that blends jet and rocket technology. The engine is capable of Mach 5 in air-breathing mode and […]

As hiring in aerospace heats up, a job fair at Sun ‘n Fun 2018 this week connected dozens of would-be pilots, mechanics and technicians with companies eager to put them to work. The job fair was sponsored by JSFirm, a well-known online job listing service that has more than 4000 openings posted. And it’s adding […]

Just in time to join AVweb’s firehose coverage of Sun ‘n Fun, aviation journalist Kate O’Connor is now a member of the AVweb news team. A 2009 graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s professional pilot program, O’Connor comes to AVweb from a stint as an associate editor at Plane and Pilot magazine, where she wrote and […]

Scaled Composites flew the second copy of its single-engine-jet, Model 401, for the first time, on Wednesday, the company has announced. “As a proof-of-concept, rapid-prototyping company, it is very rare when we get to build more than one of the same type of aircraft,” the company posted on Facebook. Scaled built two identical single-engine jets […]

Sun ‘n Fun welcomed more than100 returning World War II, Korea and Vietnam war veterans back to the warbird area last night after a whirlwind day of visiting war memorials in Washington, D.C. The Flight to Honor continues a tradition of chartering day flights to the nation’s capital so aging veterans can see the monuments […]

As AVweb reported last week, military aviation is in an uncertain time with U.S. Navy aviation mishaps involving the F/A-18 E/F Super up 108 percent over the past five years, according a story by Military Times. Additionally, in the Navy’s aviation fleet, mishaps jumped 82 percent during the past five years. This is the biggest […]