Recent Updates

Joby Aviation announced that it has raised $590 million in its recent round of Series C funding and formed a partnership with the Toyota Motor Corporation aimed at the certification and deployment of all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) for use in air taxi services. As part of the partnership, Toyota Executive Vice President […]

This article originally appeared in our sister brand KITPLANES. It’s part of an ongoing series of articles written for pilots new to the Experimental/Amateur-Built world. Its purpose is to provide a good stepping off point for, shall we say, the homebuilt-curious. Designs to be covered in future installments include the massively popular Van’s RV-6/A and […]

California-based OPENER has announced that Ben Diachun will be stepping into the role of Chief Executive Officer as the company moves toward bringing its BlackFly fixed-wing, all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) ultralight to market. The position of CEO was previously held by OPENER founder Marcus Leng, who will move to overseeing “next-generation manufacturing and […]

David Calhoun officially took over as president and chief executive officer of The Boeing Company on Monday. Calhoun follows Dennis Muilenburg, who stepped down from the CEO position at the end of December amidst ongoing criticism for his handling of the problems surrounding the company’s grounded 737 MAX model. Upon assuming his new role, Calhoun […]

Airbus has announced that it will increase the production rate for its A320 family from four to seven aircraft per month at the company’s Mobile, Alabama, manufacturing facility by the beginning of 2021. To support both the production increase along and continued recruiting efforts for the A220 manufacturing team, Airbus says it will be adding […]

Hyundai and Uber announced a partnership aimed at developing air taxis for a “future aerial ride share network” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Monday. As part of the announcement, the companies unveiled the Hyundai S-A1 Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft concept. According to […]

FAA officials will meet with local law enforcement reps from about a dozen counties in northeastern Colorado to discuss unexplained drone activity that has alarmed local residents and public officials. So far, no one has come forward to give even the slightest hint of why the drones, described as being up to eight feet long, […]

With nearly 1200 experimental/amateur-built aircraft newly registered in 2019, the fleet has seen its largest growth in a decade. The 2019 figure is up from 888 the prior year, while last year 916 aircraft were removed or “de-registered,” for a net gain of 270 registrations. All told, the FAA shows 26,842 aircraft registered as experimental/amateur-built; […]

Leonardo Helicopters announced that it successfully completed the first flight of an AW609 tiltrotor prototype “fully representative” of the aircraft’s final production configuration last week. The aircraft is the fourth AW609 prototype and, according to the company, represents the model’s entry into “the final program development and ground/flight testing stages.” The flight took place at […]

Kitmaker Sonex Aircraft has reclaimed ownership of the Sonerai design. Penned by Sonex creator John Monnett in the early 1970s, the Sonerai was developed to compete in Formula Vee racing—and is said to be capable of 170 MPH with a converted Volkswagen four-cylinder engine on the nose. The Sonerai has been supported by SoneraiWorks, but […]