Recent Updates

Airbus will fit deployable flight data and cockpit voice recorders on new A350 XWB aircraft beginning in 2019 and on the rest of its long-range fleet soon thereafter. A deployable flight data recorder is designed to separate itself from the aircraft in a crash. They are particularly useful for crashes over water where accessing or […]

Boeing told attendees at the Paris Air Show that it doesn’t expect to sell any more 747s for commercial air travel. Although the aircraft continues to sell slowly as a freighter and VIP transport, Boeing has only two remaining orders for the passenger version 747-8—not counting those sold to the bankrupt Russian carrier Transero, which […]

Last February, when I was planning a visit to Daher’s factory in Tarbes, France, I was surfing the web looking for airline fares when I saw one from Miami to Madrid for $640; outbound on Iberia, return on American. I see this sort of thing often enough to know that it’s not an everyday thing, […]

The special-mission variant of Diamond Aircraft’s DA62 made its debut at the Paris Air Show this week. The key structural change for the DA62 MPP is a strengthened nose assembly. While the nose section of the civilian variant of the DA62 is designed only to carry some modest passenger baggage, the DA62 MPP has been […]

The House bill to reauthorize the FAA for the 2018 fiscal year—starting Oct. 1—includes ATC privatization, as most general aviation groups had feared. AOPA, EAA, GAMA, NATA, Helicopter Association International and NBAA released a joint statement opposing the bill: “After a thorough and detailed review of Chairman Bill Shuster’s (R-Pa.) proposal to remove our nation’s […]

Israeli startup EViation is planning a clean-slate aircraft design to carry six to nine passengers, plus crew, on legs up to 600 miles in length, with exclusively electric propulsion. The three-motor design puts one tractor-prop on each wingtip, with one pusher on the tail. EViation’s engineers hope locating propellers on each wingtip will reduce induced […]

Airbus is developing a high-speed helicopter that will cruise at 215 knots while maximizing efficiency and minimizing cost, the company said at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday. The Racer demonstrator, now in development, will be ready to fly in 2020. “This new project, pulling together the skills and know-how of dozens of European partners […]

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which has been in the works since 1996 and first flew more than 10 years ago, made its first public flight demo on Monday afternoon, at the Paris Air Show. Lockheed Martin pilot Billie Flynn told Aviation Week, “We are going to crush years of misinformation about what this aircraft […]

“Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.” – Oscar Wilde I can’t think of a better lead in for the latest round of polling that indicates—surprise—the general public opposes the idea of privatizing air traffic control. The latest run at plumbing public sentiment on this topic was […]

E-volo, the German company that has been developing a two-seat VTOL for several years, has signed an agreement with the government of Dubai to test-fly autonomous air taxis in the emirate by the end of this year, the company announced on Monday at the Paris Air Show. Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) said in […]