While the Chinese air transportation industry wonders whether the government will merge major carriers, China Eastern’s rivals keep building up at Shanghai.
A typical Boeing 787 user is LAN Airlines of Chile, which experienced early service issues but is now using the twin jet on a wide range of routes and enjoying improved dispatch reliability.
Engineers and scientists are beginning to plan a program of robotic exploration over the next two decades to look for life on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Europa, the large icy moon of Jupiter, is first on the list.
Approval of certification plan takes Lockheed Martin a step closer to launching development of a commercial hybrid airship for cargo transport to remote locations.
Despite the founder’s indictment, Russian ownership and potential Chinese competition, Epic Aircraft’s E1000 single-turboprop advances towards FAR23 certification.
Given the huge number of lithium-ion batteries being shipped by air, some will eventually short-circuit and go into thermal runaway. Industry and regulators are considering some box-level solutions.
The planned ramp-up will see more than 250 C Series in service by 2020, when the program is expected to begin generating positive cash flow, and is “balanced, manageable and achievable,” says Bombardier Commercial Aircraft President Fred Cromer.
Task force set up to make recommendations for registration of small unmanned aircraft sets minimum size at 0.55 lb., potentially bringing toy drones under the FAA’s new rule.
Russia sells China Sukhoi fighters and special ops helicopters; Indian army scraps Nishant UAV; manned-unmanned teaming demo in South Korea; U.S. sells three Global Hawks to Japan.
While the Strategic Defense and Security Review published on Nov. 23 appears to be good news, the government’s pledges appear to do little more than paper over gaping cracks in military aircraft capabilities left by previous reviews.
The small lithium-metal and lithium-ion batteries we use everyday can pose big safety problems on aircraft, especially when carried as bulk cargo. This video shows the intensity of those fires when just a few batteries enter a state known as thermal runaway. FAA engineers at the William J. Hughes Technical Center have quantified the risks and are now testing methods to potentially mitigate them.
The test aimed to deploy the six-seat crew capsule into suborbit for a planned 4-min. weightless period, but attention was focused on whether the rocket stage could be successfully recovered using the tricky vertical-powered-landing technique.
Pratt & Whitney is poised to realize its decades-long goal of introducing the geared turbofan into commercial service, with certification of the PW1100G-powered Airbus A320neo achieved on November 24, and the PW1500G-powered Bombardier CSeries expected to follow within weeks.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket will fly again after achieving an intact powered vertical landing of the launch vehicle and parachute recovery of the unpiloted crew capsule to conclude a test flight.
Blue Origin has successfully launched and landed a reusable rocket for the first time. The New Shepard space vehicle flew to just over 329,000 feet before landing safety at its launch site in Texas. Check out Blue Origin's video of the rocket's test flight.
