Recent Updates

At AirVenture 2018, Opener was an attention getter at the Innovation Showcase with its fixed wing all-electric VTOL aircraft. With over 23,000 miles flown and plenty of funding, the company is moving closer to certification. For an update on the project, AVweb’s Ashley Anglisano caught up with Opener’s President Ben Diachun and project director Alan […]

In this podcast, Dr. Geoffrey Bower, chief engineer for Airbus’ Vahana electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) demonstrator, talks with AVweb about the aircraft and the company’s plans for urban air mobility.

Opener has donated a first-generation BlackFly personal ultralight aircraft to the EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The Opener BlackFly, which the company debuted at AirVenture last year, is a fixed-wing, all-electric, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. It has a range of 35 miles (restricted to 25 miles in the U.S.) and can travel […]

Franky Zapata’s jet-powered hoverboard has progressed from the shaky-looking platform that wobbled over water only in its first flight to serious consideration for use by the French military. The former jet-skiing champion dressed up as a futuristic soldier, complete with rifle, for a dynamic performance in front of dignitaries that included a smiling and clapping […]

There appears to be widespread agreement that the Boeing 737 MAX won’t return to service until at least the early part of 2020 as regulators and the company struggle to come up with solutions to a variety of problems that have been flagged in the process to make the aircraft airworthy. United and American Airlines […]

The bane of search and rescue personnel is the unintentional ELT activation but officials in Portland had to admit they were intrigued with the result of a three-day search for a bogus signal earlier this year. They found their quarry in the rafters of a brew pub after the ELT in a 50-year-old Canadian-registered Cessna […]

The first airplane some new Air Force pilots will fly might be a Pipistrel Alpha trainer. The first cohort of 20 potential pilots, all of them either about to become USAF officers or freshly commissioned, completed a course that led to 17 them soloing the light sport aircraft. The new program, called the Aviation-Character-Education (ACE) […]

Sonex Aircraft has announced that it is developing a two-seat version of its SubSonex JSX-2 jet. According to the company, the SubSonex JSX-2T will have similar wing loading and handling to the single-seat version. The JSX-2T will offer side-by-side seating, an estimated cruise speed of greater than 200 mph (174 knots) and an estimated useful […]

All flights at London Gatwick Airport (LGW) were suspended after problems arose with the airport’s air traffic control systems on Wednesday. It has been reported that the issue stemmed from tower computer systems. A total of 26 flights were diverted during the two-hour outage, with an estimated 95 flights cancelled and 298 delayed. The system […]

Rolls-Royce is working on an initiative to strengthen its hybrid electric power and propulsion research and development activities in Brandenburg, Germany, according to a company announcement on Monday. The company says the proposal will build on an established Rolls-Royce partnership with the Brandenburg Technical University (BTU) along with potentially including participation from small and medium-sized […]