Recent Updates

Amazon is joining the commercial space race and hopes to launch paying passengers into low earth orbit by the end of the decade. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced Tuesday that his company Blue Origin is taking over Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral and renaming it Exploration Park. “Residents of the Space Coast have enjoyed […]

If you’re a YouTube aviation video junkie, you’ve probably seen this one of what’s called a blade-out test. It’s intended to prove that the containment around a high-bypass turbofan engine can prevent shrapnel from ricocheting outside the engine in the event that the fan loses one or more blades. Or the engine core comes asunder. […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news around the world found an online ground school for gliders, an app for learning aerobatics, a new EVS unit for experimental aircraft, and a new broker business launched by Jet Trader Group.White Oak Communications LLC and Gliderbooks.com are excited to introduce the latest innovation in glider pilot training, Gliderbooks Academy […]

I’ve been watching Diamond’s autonomous and fly-by-wire research for more than three years now, but I was mildly surprised to learn this week how far they’ve come with it. I wasn’t quite expecting the full autonomous flight tests so soon for light GA aircraft. But we’re there. It makes me wonder who else is doing […]

Members of the Senate and the House returned to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday after their August recess, to face an imminent deadline to deal with funding the FAA. The current FAA funding bill expires on Sept. 30. Industry advocates are hoping there won’t be a series of temporary extensions and shutdowns like in 2011, when […]

Diamond Aircraft, flying a DA42 twin, has completed a series of fully autonomous flight tests culminating in several landings without any input from human pilots. The tests used a new fly-by-wire system Diamond has been developing for light aircraft and were completed at Diamond’s Wiener Neustadt headquarters in Austria. The trials may lead to fielding […]

The science team aboard Nautilus, a research vessel operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust, recently explored the wreckage of the USS Macon, an aircraft-carrier dirigible operated by the U.S. Navy that crashed off the coast of California and sank in 1935. The researchers used remotely operated vehicles to explore the remains of the airship and […]

Most aerial firefighting aircraft are relics of the 1950s and 1960s, but Canadian air tanker modification company Conair is adapting a 21st century design to firefighting work. AVweb’s Russ Niles got a tour of the Avro RJ85 at Conair’s Abbotsford, British Columbia headquarters. view on YouTube

During the six hours that elapsed between the time I decided to write this blog and my actually pushing the button to publish it, 16 people were killed in fatal auto accidents in the U.S. None were killed by drones, nor probably even nicked. How do I know about the car wrecks? I don’t. I […]

A team of students and their professor from a Brazilian university say they’ve set five new records for an aircraft powered by a four-cylinder engine. Anequim (Portuguese for Mako shark) went 323 mph over a 3-kilometer course. That’s 33 mph faster than Jon Sharp’s Nemesis, the current record holder, which was the undisputed champion in […]