Aircraft & Propulsion

Bell’s V-247 unmanned tiltrotor; NASA seeks electric ideas; quieter approaches with DLR’s LNAS; JP Aerospace flies Ascender airship.

Japan's defense ministry says it will “acquire high-autonomy technology to realize an unmanned wingman for the F-3 in 15 to 20 years.”

Bell has unveiled the smaller V-247 Vigilant tiltrotor, aimed at an emerging U.S. Marine Corps requirement for a ship-based expeditionary, endurance unmanned aircraft system.

A jet trainer free from International Traffic in Arms Regulations could grab a significant chunk of that market.

New Aero Vodochody CEO Giuseppe Giordo charts path to aircraft production.

Although the U.S. Air Force has been fighting for years to sunset the A-10 attack plane so it can move resources to newer fighters, Secretary Deborah Lee James tells Aviation Week the air arm may once again delay plans to retire the Thunderbolt II.

Boeing is taking no chances on the U.S. Air Force’s T-X trainer competition, which may save its St. Louis factory when F-15 and F/A-18 production ends.

In this week's defense roundup: Belarus testing weaponized UAV, Antonov to fly light airlifter before 2017, NRO focuses on ground systems and algorithms, and Indonesia test flies first of five retrofitted C-130Bs.

Among 16 Tigers in Australian Army squadron service, an average of only 3.5 were serviceable in 2015.

Announcement of the new bomber development is a further sign that China is seeking to project force beyond ranges necessary for immediate national defense.

Turkish government changes recruitment laws to let the air force to solve pilot crisis and recruit officers before they graduate from college.

What you need to know going into the Air Force Association’s annual air and space symposium.

U.S. Air Force’s top uniformed acquisition officer is trying to cut costs and maintain schedules during a major overhaul of top aircraft programs.

In this defense roundup, India’s Light Utility Helicopter, Spain’s first A400M fly, Poland may seek Patriots and a Predator B could get European certification.

The future of defense procurement was parsed brilliantly by lauded science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, well more than a half-decade ago.

Thinking about the next fighter as an airplane first and foremost is a strategic mistake.

Why some very important military airplanes don’t look like military airplanes.

The Pentagon’s weapons-test watchdog and the F-35 program leaders are at loggerheads. Don’t expect it to change any time soon.

Secrecy, nuclear weapons and (of course) the JSF will be talking points in the coming year.

Fighter operators and Pentagon acquisition troops are talking past each other. That can’t end well.

Britain’s defense review put a few surprises under the tree for industries and operators.

A formal protest of the Pentagon’s Long-Range Strike Bomber award to Northrop Grumman has to be based on failure to follow rules, but the challengers’ public case goes far beyond that.

Northrop Grumman undercut its rivals’ price to win the bomber contract, and the Pentagon’s requirements could have given it the chance to do so.

Canada’s Liberals didn’t have to go on the record against the F-35. Nobody expected them to win an outright majority. Guess what just happened.

Are unmanned air vehicles worth their impact on the Air Force budget? We don’t really know.