Recent Updates

Subaru Corporation has filed for a U.S. patent for a “land-and-air vehicle”—a tilt-rotor/motorcycle. And the application wasn’t dated April 1. Drawings show a heavily faired gas engine-powered motorcycle with conventional throttle, clutch and front-brake controls on its handlebars. It also shows a piggyback airframe component with a pair of wings folded back against the side […]

Touting changes that could “revolutionize” flight testing for experimental/amateur-built aircraft, the Experimental Aircraft Association says that the FAA recent draft guidance on Phase I flight testing could change from a pure hours-based system (25 or 40 hours for most homebuilts) to a task-based system that could cut flight hours and improve the quality of the […]

Air taxi developer Lilium unveiled a seven-seat version of its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft on Friday. Aimed at the regional shuttle segment, the “7-Seater Lilium Jet” is expected to cruise at 175 MPH with a range of around 155 miles. Lilium, which has flown two- and five-seat versions of its eVTOL, reports […]

Pipistrel has chosen Honeywell’s AH-2000 attitude heading reference system and air data module (ADM) for its Nuuva V300 autonomous cargo aircraft. According to Honeywell, the AH-2000 uses the company’s Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS)-based inertial sensors to provide aircraft attitude and velocity information. Pipistrel announced last October that the Nuuva V300 would also use the Honeywell Compact […]

Virgin Galactic introduced the first of its SpaceShip III suborbital spaceplanes, named VSS Imagine, on Tuesday. The third generation SpaceShip features a modular design that will, the company says, “enable improved performance in terms of maintenance access and flight rate.” Virgin Galactic is also in the process of building the second member of the SpaceShip […]

NASA has marked April 8 as the first possible flight date for its Mars helicopter technology demonstrator, which arrived on the planet on Feb. 18 attached to the Perseverance rover. Named Ingenuity, the demonstrator is designed to be the first powered, controlled aircraft to fly on another planet. Once it detaches from the rover, the […]

NASA successfully completed the second hot fire test of the core stage of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on Thursday at Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The rocket’s four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines fired for 8 minutes and 19 seconds while running through a series of operational conditions designed to simulate […]

China-based autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) company EHang has announced plans to build an “eco-sustainable” vertiport in Italy. The company says the vertiport, which is being designed to support its EH216 passenger AAV, will be capable of generating over 300 kW of electricity a day via solar panels. In addition to a landing platform with “plug-and-play” […]

One of the most common places Experimental airplane owners look for performance improvements is the propeller, and many homebuilts go through several props in their lifetime. This is not surprising as propeller design, like many aspects of aircraft design, is an exercise in tradeoffs, but prop design in particular is a black art to many. There […]

The FAA has announced that the final rules covering remote identification of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/drones) and drone operations over people will now go into effect on April 21, 2021. The original effective date for both rules was March 16, 60 days after they were published in the Federal Register. According to the FAA, the […]