Recent Updates

As the inevitable autonomy of everything looms just ahead, rock-star entrepreneur Elon Musk had this to say at a recent development conference: “You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine. It’s too dangerous.” And that’s to say the driverless car visionaries don’t just want to offer you an autonomous vehicle, they’ll insist on […]

With more than 6300 CAPS-equipped Cirrus aircraft out there and given all the unblinking security cameras running 24/7, it was inevitable that good video of a Cirrus parachute touchdown would eventually emerge. Earlier this month,it did. (More here.) On March 5, an SR22 en route from Groton, Connecticut, to Republic Airport on Long Island suffered […]

Large-scale drones could safely fly in the National Airspace System by using ADS-B technology, according to NASA researchers. The agency said recently it has developed a patent-pending integrated communications and control system that’s capable of collision warnings as well as real-time traffic and weather updates. Vigilant Aerospace Systems has recently signed a licensing agreement with […]

Assembly of the unique Airlander lighter-than-air transport vehicle is now complete, Hybrid Air Vehicles announced today. The ship was shown off to visitors, fully inflated and hovering, inside the hangar in Bedfordshire, U.K. The next step will be a ground-testing phase, then it will roll out of the hangar to start an extensive flight-test program. […]

The CEO of the world’s biggest iron ore company was killed, along with his family and a hired pilot, in the crash of his kit-built aircraft in Sao Paolo, Brazil, on Saturday. Roger Agnelli, his wife, two grown children and their spouses died when their Comp Air 9 turboprop, which is a homebuilt aircraft in […]

Could a future weapon in the battle against terrorist groups be found in the warbird section of your local airshow? The U.S. Navy has pressed a couple of OV-10 Broncos into the fight against ISIL. Since the terrorists don’t have much in the way of anti-aircraft defenses, the big, slow Vietnam-era turboprop twins can take […]

Amazon has upped the ante in its foray into the air freight business, announcing Friday that it’s taken a small ownership stake in the company providing 20 Boeing 767 cargo airplanes for its new service. As we reported in December, Amazon did a trial run with five of Air Transport Services Group‘s aircraft, using DHL’s […]

I was browsing the local paper this week and noticed a letter from a resident calling out my local airport at Venice for having installed a very expensive EMAS runway overrun system. You’re familiar with these, I’m sure. EMAS is engineered material arresting system and in this context, it refers to sophisticated foam concrete blocks […]

A Lufthansa Airbus A380 reported a close call with a drone near Los Angeles International Airport Friday afternoon, prompting local law enforcement to search for the operator. The crew notified the FAA of an unmanned aircraft flying 200 feet above the jet about 14 miles east of the airport at 5,000 feet, the Los Angeles […]

The Experimental Aircraft Association’s Kermit Weeks Hangar is just down the road from the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. While the museum is the public face of EAA, the Weeks Hangar is where the action is. In the most basic sense, it’s a maintenance and restoration facility. But that’s a bit like calling the […]