Aircraft & Propulsion

Dan Dumbacher
Merlin’s autonomous King Air; EHang’s bigger eVTOL; Near Earth on VoloDrone; MagniX’s electric seaplane; OneWeb’s beam-hopper.
Emerging Technologies

By Graham Warwick
Within a budget request for aeronautics research in fiscal 2022 of $914.8 million, up from $828.7 million enacted for 2021, NASA plans to accelerate the launch of the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator program to produce a full-scale, ultra-efficient subsonic X-plane.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Graham Warwick
An electric-powered sailplane designed to ease challenges of training glider pilots has completed its experimental test phase and is being prepared for industrialization under a European-funded project.
Aerospace

By Graham Warwick
A four-seat hybrid-electric aircraft is being prepared for flight tests under a European research program.
Air Transport

By Michael Bruno
British aerostructures and aviation parts maker Senior Plc has been jockeying with a distressed-asset investment group, which recently made an offer to buy Senior for about $1.05 billion, the company revealed May 28.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Sean Broderick
Boeing 787 deliveries have been on hold since early May as the company works to satisfy U.S. FAA concerns about how production issues are being addressed, the company confirmed May 28.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Graham Warwick
There is a path for aviation to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but it requires changes in technologies and behaviors far beyond the industry’s traditional incremental pace of progress.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Graham Warwick
Electric propulsion pioneer MagniX has partnered with Blade Urban Air Mobility to electrify a fleet of Cessna Caravan seaplanes operated for Blade by Lima, New York, starting in early 2023.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Joe Anselmo, Jens Flottau, Guy Norris
Both Airbus and Boeing are looking at big boosts in production of their narrowbody jets. But with some regions of the world still closed to outsiders, the widebody market is a different story.
Aerospace

By Jens Flottau
Airbus is exploring if and how it could raise production of its A320neo family to 75 aircraft per month in 2025 while also almost tripling output of the A220 to 14 aircraft over roughly the same period.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Guy Norris
Following a series of commissioning runs with a Trent XWB turbofan and after almost three years of construction, Rolls-Royce has officially opened Testbed 80 at its Derby, England headquarters.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Guy Norris
Boeing has begun taxi tests of the 737-10—the fourth version of the MAX series and the longest stretch of the company’s long-running twinjet program—in the run-up to first flight.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Thierry Dubois
In a bid to find an effective and immediate way to cut aviation’s contribution to global warming, one of the busiest air traffic control centers in Europe is conducting live tests of vertical flight profile-based action to avoid the formation of contrails.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Aaron Karp
Airlines are looking to fly more point-to-point long-haul routes with smaller, more efficient aircraft.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Jens Flottau, Guy Norris
Oversupply to market has yielded big, young in-service fleets, which means the current lull has, in part, been a self-inflicted wound.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Bill Carey
Garmin International announced on May 25 that it has acquired AeroData, a provider of aircraft performance software to airlines and business aviation operators, for an undisclosed price.
Business Aviation

By Michael Bruno
The aerospace and defense industry is dividing—not between commercial aviation and defense work, but between new markets that are focused on product innovations, such as in space and urban air mobility, and those more focused on business innovation.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Michael Bruno
To be sure, commercial aircraft delivery funding fell off a proverbial cliff last year. Guess again if that means much for the future.
Airlines & Lessors

By Karen Walker
There’s new thinking about aviation carbon reduction.
Safety, Ops & Regulation

By Adrian Schofield
India’s carriers are looking to IPOs, share sales and changes in ownership to improve their long-term viability.
Airlines & Lessors

By Sean Broderick
Recovering passenger demand coupled with airlines’ push for more cost-efficient operations could soon drive narrowbody production rates past where they were before the 2020 downturn, Triumph Group President and CEO Dan Crowley said.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Lori Ranson
Operators in and out of bankruptcy are making fleet adjustments to remain competitive.
Airlines & Lessors

By Sean Broderick, Lee Ann Shay
The agreement would clarify the manufacturer’s positions on using third-party alternatives such as parts repairs on its engines, and what, if any, ramifications such cost-saving moves have on warranties and other services.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Graham Warwick
Drag-reducing boundary-layer ingestion could cut the fuel burn of a future twin-aisle airliner by more than 3% compared to an equivalent-technology conventional aircraft, a European research project has concluded.
Sustainability

By Helen Massy-Beresford
“Together with the renewal of our fleet, sustainable aviation fuels constitute our main lever in the medium term for reducing our CO2 emissions per passenger/km by half by 2030,” Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith said.
Aircraft & Propulsion