Recent Updates

NASA’s planned launch of the Artemis I uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft was called off on Monday. According to the agency, the launch was scrubbed after one of the SLS’s four RS-25 engines failed to reach the correct temperature range for liftoff. While a date has not […]

Another top-floor FAA exec has joined an eVTOL company and hopes to help shape the way the new aircraft are certified. Mike Romanowski left his post as the FAA certification director of policy and innovation to join Archer Aviation as its head of government affairs. Romanowski spent 14 years at the FAA and in the […]

NASA has identified 13 potential landing regions for Artemis III, which is expected to be the first crewed mission to land on the lunar surface since 1972. The regions measure approximately 15 by 15 kilometers (9.3 by 9.3 miles) and are all located within 6 degrees of latitude of the Moon’s South Pole. According to […]

The FAA has awarded a total of $2.7 million to support research on using unmanned aerial systems (UAS/drones) to assist in disaster preparedness and emergency response operations. The funding will go to five universities including the University of Vermont, the University of Alabama Huntsville, New Mexico State University, North Carolina State University and Kansas State […]

I recall a chilly morning at the Reno-Stead airport when I realized I no longer felt like a total outsider. It was 2017, the first year I towed Jeff LaVelle’s trailer full of tools, hardware and a spare Hartzell propeller to the National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada. He raced his Glasair III and I stood alongside him […]

CubCrafters has unveiled a new engine designed for experimental Carbon Cub aircraft outfitted with fixed-pitch propellers. Called the CC363i F/P, the engine is a version of the 186-HP four-cylinder, fuel-injected, constant-speed prop CC363i introduced by CubCrafters in 2017. The Carbon Cub entered the market powered by CubCrafters’ Lycoming O-320-based carbureted 180-HP CC340 engine. “It is […]

The Air Force is having a look at how it might use eVTOLs and is starting with who’s best for the flight deck. It’s hired Massachusetts consulting company Aptima to figure out what an Air Force eVTOL pilot might look like. “The learnability study will help us not only understand the baseline pilot skills and competencies […]

Bristow group has placed a firm order with electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) developer BETA Technologies for five ALIA-250 eVTOL aircraft. The order also includes options for 50 additional ALIA aircraft. BETA says the ALIA-250 design, which completed its first interstate flight last year, will seat a pilot and five passengers, carry a 1,400-pound […]

I have often written that before you start building an airplane, you should set your requirements: What is the airplane designed to do? What design satisfies that goal? How does it need to be equipped to perform that mission? Once you have decided on a project for a specific mission, it is important to keep those […]

Keen to show off their new High-Wing variation of the well-regarded low-wing TSi, South African airframer Sling has done so in spectacular fashion by flying the prototype and production serial numbers one and two from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The trio landed at AirVenture yesterday afternoon. The epic jaunt was flown in daylight in legs up […]