Recent Updates

New green technologies developed by NASA and the aviation industry will lead to quieter, cleaner, more efficient and safer aircraft, according to researchers and industry representatives who recently met at NASA’s Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Virginia. The Green Aviation technical meeting drew more than 100 people, who shared their insights and results from research. […]

Puttering slowly across the tarmac, with only two of its four big engines slowly turning, might not seem like much of a feat for a B-29, but for Wichita’s “Doc,” it was a milestone — the low-speed taxi test was the first time in 60 years the airplane moved under its own power. The test […]

Cirrus has flown the first production Vision SF50 jet. Cirrus spokesman Ben Kowalski told the Grand Forks Heraldthe aircraft flew May 5 and performed as expected. “It demonstrated that we have implemented out a repeatable process on our production line and are prepared to begin initial production of the Vision Jet,” Kowalski told the Herald. […]

To remain a general aviation participant in good standing—or hell, just a participant of any standing—requires a certain resilience, an almost alien capacity to slough off disaster and munch gleefully on catastrophe. Rolling with the punches comes to mind, but somehow just doesn’t do justice to the gloom that pervades the aviation economy. Now that […]

Third-class medical reform could get another chance of making it to a congressional vote via a defense funding bill that moved through the Senate’s Armed Services Committee this week. The committee voted 23-3 in favor of the bill, which would authorize $602 billion for the Department of Defense and other national security programs. It includes […]

Regardless of whether your aircraft is metal, composite, or tube and fabric, quite a few homebuilts these days use composite fairings. Nowhere is this more true than the engine cowl—it’s just not an easy shape to fabricate out of other materials. Unfortunately, for tightly-cowled installations, heat from proximity to exhaust pipes (or a turbo) can […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news around the world found announcements from Vector Aerospace, McKinney Air Center,LifeStyle Aviation and Flightglobal. Vector Aerospace Corporation, a global independent provider of aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services, announced the grand opening of a new engine test cell at its Summerside facility in Prince Edward Island, Canada. It joins […]

Wrapping up a marathon 10 days of travel this week, I was happy to get my mitts on and actually fly a real airplane. Not a drone operated from some air-conditioned trailer a half a world away or something powered by batteries that lack capacity or, more likely, something that exists only in a PowerPoint […]

Aero Electric Aircraft Corp.’s solar-electric Sun Flyer airplane made its first public appearance at Centennial Airport in Colorado Wednesday. The proof-of-concept model, in development as a low-cost, environmentally friendly trainer, will be the test aircraft for its FAA certification, AEA said. The company also announced during a rollout event it is partnering with the University […]

The Airbus Perlan Mission II team, which aims to fly a pressurized glider to a record of 90,000 feet, is continuing its flight-test program in Minden, Nevada. Airbus CEO Tom Enders visited the site last weekend, and went for a flight in the glider with the project’s chief pilot, Jim Payne. “Experiencing the Perlan 2 […]