Aviation Week & Space Technology

Key decisions on A380, NMA reaction loom as Airbus changes sales leadership.

Velvet Wasp is an armed drone designed by the UK’s SteelRock to enable soldiers to provide their own close air support.

SpaceX is still aiming for two to three more launches this year, but the debut flight of Falcon Heavy won’t be among them.

Aircraft lighting influences birdstrikes, Facebook and Airbus team to advance stratospheric UAVs, Boeing backs new MIT wind tunnel, NASA supercomputers unlock flow secrets, and TsAGI’s air-cushion amphibian for the Arctic.

The aerospace industry lacks adequate policy to manage risks. Efforts show that strides are being made, however.

Jeffrey Knittel has been named Airbus Americas chairman and CEO, based at the company’s Herndon, Virginia, headquarters.

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Boeing subsidiary Insitu says that working proactively with regulators is key to enabling routine commercial beyond-visual-line-of-sight UAS operations.

An optimally located Chinese freight airport should open in 2020 and move 2.45 million metric tons of cargo by 2025. SF Express will be the anchor tenant.

The CST-100 Starliner, one of two U.S. spacecraft in development for NASA International Space Station crew rotation, is on track for a 2018 debut.

The defense ministry says it has not decided on deciding: should it put off considering whether to develop an indigenous combat aircraft?

Hawaiian CEO Mark Dunkerley is retiring after 15 years in leadership roles, although his successor Peter Ingram stresses there will be no change in direction.

U.S. startup’s plans to certify a nine-seat battery-powered regional aircraft by 2020 are based on modifying an already certified turboprop.

F-22 Raptor pilots say Russian fighters frequently fly within striking distance of coalition ground troops.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

Conglomerates are prime targets because they have disparate business units—some with unrealized value—as well as redundant cost structures and excess fat.

Gluing detail parts together would reduce mass because the adhesive has little weight and pieces can be thinner than those connected by fasteners.

The main change relative to the previous design appears to be a reduction in the span of the wing and, as a result, its aspect ratio, or slenderness.

In this week’s Washington Outlook, a Senate chairman’s bill still has many hurdles to overcome and the Transportation Department brings an end to Eastern Air Lines.

Tom Enders has a tough choice to make in replacing legendary sales chief John Leahy.

Readers discuss hypoxia cockpit events, small businesses and bureaucracy, the advance of hybrid-electric vehicles, U.S. misdef straegies and RNP-AR limitations.

Building on 787-8 and -9 experience, Boeing is looking to smooth entry-into-service of the 787-10 in 2018.

Saudi aerospace capability is broadening its capabilities and knowledge with airlifter, helicopter and UAV projects.

CAE is looking to replicate the success of its Canadian C-130J training program in Trenton, Ontario, as it sets up a training center for the C295W search-and-rescue aircraft in Comox.

Following the fielding of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton, the U.S. Navy is about to begin development of the MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based tanker.