Recent Updates

Richard “Dick” Taylor, known for his decades of work on jet designs, died earlier this month at 93 at his home in Seattle. He was a test pilot and later director of engineering for Boeing, where his portfolio included the B-29 tanker, the B-47, B-52 and later, the 737. The Seattle Times noted that Taylor […]

A nonprofit corporation with a long history of developing new technology (it made the first nuclear rods, invented the foundation technology of the CD) has come up with a way to harmlessly disable drones that are flying where they aren’t supposed to be flying. The Battelle Memorial Institute has come up with a gun-like radio […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news around the world found an Amazon Fire release from Hilton Software,progress on Pratt & Whitney Canada’s new turboprop engine, updated products from Mountain High Oxygen, andKansas State’s opening of its new UAS facility.Hilton Software LLC, a leader in advanced mobile aviation technology and a United States Department of Defense contractor, […]

SkyPan International, the drone operator that was fined $1.9 million this month by the FAA for aerial photography flights, maintains it has always operated legally and safely. In a response to the FAA’s charges that it conducted unauthorized flights in New York and Chicago between March 2012 and December 2014, SkyPan says it “operates only […]

When it comes to drones—talking about them, writing about them, filming them or considering them in almost any context—I think hysteria is still the standard condition. Even we reported last month that a million of the damn things could be given as Christmas gifts. The source of this was Rich Swayze, who told an Airlines […]

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology say they have discovered a fuel additive that could reduce the intensity of jet-fuel-fed explosions when airplanes crash. The additive has no adverse affect on fuel performance, according to the team’s preliminary results. The additive, created by a team headed by Julia Kornfield, professor of chemical engineering, is […]

Pipistrel, a light-aircraft manufacturer based in Slovenia, has won a contract to supply India’s military with 194 copies of its Virus SW 80 Garud two-seat trainer. “This is without a doubt the largest contract in the entire 26-year history of Pipistrel,” said Ivo Boscarol, Pipistrel’s owner and general manager. The company will produce about seven […]

In the persistent quest to squeeze ever more passengers into the finite space of a composite tube, Airbus has patented a proposal to stack a second layer of seats above the middle rows of wide-bodies to fill those cubic feet with fare-paying cargo. The company has filed a variety of designs to accomplish the high-density […]

The captain of an Allegiant Airlines MD-88 reportedly stopped the imminent evacuation of the aircraft on the runway at Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport Sunday after crews extinguished an engine fire. The local ABC affiliate, 13 Action News, reported the flight crew aborted the takeoff of Flight 516 to Fresno about 1:20 p.m. after “indications […]

How can one not see the grim humor in last week’s confluence of events that seemed tailor made to tank Third Class medical reform? Hapless doesn’t even begin to describe general aviation’s fate before the fortunes of a callous world.The first turn of bad timing was obviously the untimely death of an American Airlines captain […]