Aviation Week & Space Technology

If regulators are concerned about the Big Four U.S. carriers colluding, why did they allow so much consolidation in the first place?

The U.K. Airports Commission’s unanimous decision to select the £15 billion northwest runway option proposed by Heathrow’s owners was hardly a surprise, but it will likely provoke protests.

Design house Dzyne Technologies is flying a subscale model of an VTOL unmanned aircraft that uses its wing as its rotor.

U.K. government investment in civil aerospace R&D is now channeled through the Aerospace Technology Institute, and the organization releases its first strategy to guide where the money will be spent.

Clinic deliveries by UAS; new turbine superalloys in the mix; airline backs biofuel from waste; Embraer to fly ecoDemonstrator; better carbon-fiber repairs.

Gull wings, engines above the wing or embedded in the tail—all options gaining increased consideration for future fuel-efficient commercial aircraft.

Lapse in Ex-Im bank assistance could hurt Boeing in the long term, and the general aviation community sooner; Former NASA chief provides another perspective on SpaceX’s commercial viability.

DEFENSE A Lockheed Martin F-35B dropped the U.K.’s Raytheon Paveway IV precision-guided bomb for the first time on June 12, two inert 500-lb. munitions being released from the aircraft’s weapons bay. On June 23, the first F-35B ski-jump launch was conducted at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. U.K. Queen Elizabeth-class carriers will be equipped with ski-jump ramps.

What will happen when New Horizons hurtles past the icy dwarf planet and its five moons on July 14?

Frank Wilson has Worner been named CEO of ControlCam, a Jacksonville, Florida-based aerial imaging business specializing in high-resolution and geo-referenced imagery. He was previously senior vice president and general manager of the Defense and Security Business unit of iRobot, and as a vice president and general manager of several businesses at BAE Systems.

Why priorities of the Pentagon and its key contractors are not lining up.

With Proton and Falcon 9 sidelined and Ariane 5 booked into 2017, commercial fleet operators question how much longer the status quo can continue.

USAF's bomber pursuit; China's pursuit of stovl stealth aircraft; bogus blades draw comment

Oct. 13-15—MRO Europe, London. Nov. 3-5—MRO Asia, Singapore. Nov. 3-5—AerospaceDefenseChain, Scottsdale, Arizona. Jan. 21-22, 2016—MRO Latin America, Lima, Peru. Feb. 3-4, 2016—MRO Middle East, Dubai. March 3, 2016—Laureates, Washington.

Lengthy report from Emirates Airline takes on accusations about government subsidies.

F-35 team downplays combat maneuvering test results. But is it time to write off the importance of classic performance parameters?

New Horizons probe flyby of Pluto, almost 15 years in the making, had to overcome both technical and bureaucratic challenges.

New Horizons has a long trajectory and it is not over yet.

New Horizons expects successful transmission of data collected at Pluto back to Earth, but space debris could create problems.

The spacecraft is in the midst of taking “hundreds” of images and science measurements, “about half” of them programmed for the day that surrounds closest approach to Pluto at 7:49:57 a.m. EDT, according to Leslie Young, the deputy project scientist and Pluto-encounter planning lead.

From kite surfing in the stratosphere to tethered heavy-lifters, unmanned aircraft are enabling out-of-the-box thinking.

The concept for low-energy planetary entry is described as similar to “throwing an air mattress into the atmosphere.”

When massive Stratolaunch program begins to wind down, Scaled Composites promises a return to the Rutan days of smaller, fast-paced projects that result in flight testing of aviation breakthroughs.

Like former U.S. President Harry Truman, he made bold and consequential decisions that damaged his popularity but positioned his organization for long-term success.

Service leaders are right to say that the F-35 is better than the aircraft they have today. But that’s not the whole story.