Recent Updates

The FAA says it hasn’t yet dealt with more than 30 requests from companies and groups that want to fly small unmanned aerial systems for commercial purposes in the U.S. The companies, like Wilbur-Ellis Co., a California-based agribusiness corporation, have been filing Petitions for Exemption from a host of regulations that add up to the […]

Japan is studying whether to go it alone on building its next generation of fighter aircraft. Japan’s ministry of defense has been working on the Advanced Technology Demonstrator (ATD-X) for four years and it’s scheduled to fly in January. Nikkei Asian Review says the ministry is asking the government for $384 million to fund a […]

For the past five years, Chris Malloy and his company Malloy Aeronautics have been developing the hoverbike-originally resembling a flying motorcycle with two horizontal fans. A four-fan, 1/3 scale prototype UAV-complete with a robot rider (named Buster)-is now flying and copies of what is called Drone 3 are available for those who want to invest […]

Just a year and a half after first flight of the prototype SAM aircraft, President Thierry Zibi has put the company up for sale. Why, after so much work – design, fixturing, successful flight test, certification and orders – would that be a good time to sell the company? Zibi says, “I came to the […]

AVweb’s weekly review of developments in aviation revealed news that Cessna delivered its 10,000th single-engine airplane from its Independence, Kansas, facility, Bell Helicopter broke ground on a new manufacturing facility, Cutter Aviation received a safety award, and the FAA authorized transition training in Bearhawk amateur-built aircraft. Textron Aviation Inc. announced that Cessna Aircraft Company delivered […]

Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods posted their biggest gain on record in July on strong overseas demand for aircraft, and the underlying trend also remained firm, pointing to brisk economic growth. Transportation orders rose a record 74.2 percent as bookings for civilian aircraft more than tripled. Boeing had said earlier it received a record […]

Airline travel and everything associated with it has a way of bringing out the worst in people. And now that the airlines have reduced seat pitch to that of a Roman slave galley, we’ve entered the era of the cabin brawl. In case you didn’t hear about it, a United flight from Newark to Denver […]

Disney “imagineers” have found some unique uses for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that could eventually see airborne puppets controlled by drones pulling the strings. The company has filed three patent applications to use the increasingly sophisticated little aircraft to widen its entertainment offerings at its theme parks. A couple of the patents address a proposed […]

A collection of historic aircraft that flew in the 1969 movie “The Battle of Britain” and then sat in storage in a Texas hangar for more than 40 years has been sold for more than 10 million pounds (almost $17 million) to a European dealer, the Sunday Express reported this weekend. The collection includes a […]

Sooner or later, I knew it was coming: Connie Edwards’ aircraft collection wasn’t going to molder away in his hangar forever and this week, the day arrived. Over the weekend, the U.K.’s Sunday Express announced that Edwards’ collection of about a dozen World War II era fighters had been sold for $17 million to a […]