Recent Updates

A piece of aviation history roared to life for the first time in a decade last week in an important milestone toward first flight. Crews at Basler Turbo Conversions in Oshkosh started the No. 1 engine in That’s All Brother, the C-47 that led 800 other aircraft in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. The […]

If, as Samuel Johnson is purported to have said, patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, perhaps the mercantilist parallel in the age of global commerce is a faded bumper sticker once popular around Seattle: If it’s not a Boeing, I’m not going. That, in part, seems to be animating the current tawdry mud […]

Progressive Aerodyne is in the final stage of testing the new Rotax 915 in the Searey amphibious aircraft. AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli visited the factory and took a test flight with the new engine. view on YouTube

BAE Systems and the University of Manchester have flown a stealthy drone that has no movable control surfaces and therefore does not change shape at all in flight. The MAGMA drone uses blown air to change aerodynamics and allow three-axes control. The most obvious benefit from the innovation is that there is no deflection of […]

Aerion Corporation, promoters of the AS2 12-seat, supersonic business jet concept, have partnered with Lockheed Martin to explore development and production feasibility for the project. “Following our initial review of Aerion’s aerodynamic technology, our conclusion is that the Aerion AS2 concept warrants the further investment of our time and resources,” says Orlando Carvalho, executive vice […]

NASA says its engineers reached a major milestone this week, successfully testing the battery system that will power the all-electric X-plane expected to take flight next year. “This was an extremely critical milestone for the overall project,” said Tom Rigney, project manager for the X-57 Maxwell. “Without a safe battery system, we wouldn’t be able […]

The operator of a drone that collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in September didn’t see the aircraft because he was flying the drone beyond visual range, the NTSB said on Thursday. The operator also lacked adequate knowledge of the regulations and safe operating practices for drone flying, the safety board said. The […]

There have been no reported fatalities in the crash of a regional airliner in northern Saskatchewan in Canada on Wednesday. The West Wind Aviation ATR 42 was carrying a total of 25 people when it went down just after takeoff from Fond du Lac, on a scheduled flight to Stony Rapids, also a remote northern […]

Blue Origin, the company funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos that’s working to develop sub-orbital space tourism, successfully launched a rocket from a west Texas site on Tuesday. The 60-foot-tall rocket carried crew capsule 2.0 on its first flight, to an altitude of about 322,000 feet, or 61 miles, in about two and a half […]

The aviation world was atwitter last week with the news that the U.S. Air Force had selected five recent enlistees to participate in a study on alternative pilot training techniques. The Air Force, however, confirms that they have no plans to put enlisted personnel in the pilot’s seat. “Selecting enlisted members to fill the non-college […]