Aviation Week & Space Technology

Unmanned in the news: AeroVironment’s Snipe nano; UAS expert heads Airbus A3; VTOL Aerosonde ready; Rwanda leads drone delivery.

Airframers and airlines must shore up cyberweakness in supply chains and avoid safety risks.

Japan and Britain are assessing the likely performance of an AESA-equipped Meteor in separate but coordinated studies. Expense and development time are also being weighed.

Cultivating true pilot autonomy in unscripted scenarios takes decades to hone and demands honest assessment of mistakes.

Metalysis’s vision is one of on-demand production of metal powder in factories of the future.

Deemphasis of maneuverability in the 2013 25DMU concept design is one of several signs that the defense ministry’s engineers think Japan’s next fighter should engage its targets at great distance.

Poland opts for Black Hawks after withdrawing from Airbus helicopter deal.

EASA says H225 can be operated with an “acceptable level of safety” with checks and balances.

In this week’s Washington Outlook: a White House official looks at continued cooperation with India, including fighter sales; Obama touts Mars exploration; and Southwest Airlines starts flights to Cuba.

Now that the new tanker’s bumpy design phase is over, the U.S. Air Force is looking forward to bringing the fly-by-wire Pegasus online.

Russia is upgrading tanker fleets with modernized Il-76 and Il-96 platforms.

In this week’s roundup: DigitalGlobe acquisition adds to its analysis prowess; Bangladesh buys a C295W; Raytheon wraps up risk-reduction testing on GPS III OCX; and the U.S. Army opts for a new version of the Switchblade UAV.

Airbus tanker could also take on network node and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tasks.

The new air force platform is based on the IL-76.

Morocco needs to maintain security and political stability. But with major civil OEMs laser-focused on cost reduction, the outlook appears to be bright.

Will global agreements to limit CO2 emissions force airlines to push for breakthrough technologies?

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, two billionaires with ambitious visions for space colonization, have markedly different approaches to settling the ‘final frontier.’

The defense sector’s structure is bound to be affected by seven factors within the next 10 years.

After a long hiatus from the market, supersonic airliners may be poised to make a big comeback, and Boom Technology is looking to be first in the market.

New deals are creating bigger combinations in the leasing world, which provides about half of the aircraft industry’s orders.

NASA evaluation highlights Elytron VTOL design challenges as the scaled UAV prepares for tests.

Norway’s 2017 budget blueprint includes plans for participating in the second and third years of the proposed joint buy.

Raytheon adds network protections to avionics for Bell Boeing’s V-22 under an existing $250 million sustainment contract.

Three months after becoming CEO of troubled Air-France-KLM, Jean-Marc Janaillac prepares to release the cornerstone of his strategy to turn the airline around.

NASA’s original 2015 goal of certifying commercial space vehicles to service the ISS has not been met but, despite setbacks, Boeing still hopes to make it happen by late 2018.