The autonomous aircraft will meet the potential environmental and transport challenges and offer safe, clean, and quite urban travel experience. Designed to operate on vertiports (vertical airports), the aircraft allows for quick boarding and disembarking of passengers. Boeing successfully completed the first test flight of the PAV eVTOL in January 2019. Boeing PAV...
Data, and how we use it, is becoming ever more critical in our day-to-day operations – especially when it comes to forest firefighting and supporting emergency operations. The Lua, which is developed by Babcock’s Innovation Team in Spain, consists of an unmanned helicopter-based aerial platform with a maximum take-off weight of 25kg. It has a payload capacity of 7 kg ...
On the ramp in the mist, the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet, which many still call the “Cirrus Jet,” is a figure of some mystery. When I posted a photo on my Facebook page of the plane viewed from the rear, its distinctive V-tail prominent, a friend asked if it was a “Bugatti.” Now, the Bugatti, developed at the tail end of the Golden Era of air racing, was a single-engine speed...
Known as ‘HAWK30’, the aircraft serves as a stratospheric telecommunications platform system, flying at altitudes of 20km. With a 260ft wingspan of and a length of 78m, the HAWK30 is propelled by ten solar-powered electric motors. Its ability to fly above the clouds ensures that the aircraft’s wing-mounted solar panels are continually powered by sunlight. Flying...
Under the agreement, Honeywell’s autonomous sensing and flight technologies, including inertial measurement units and potentially other urban air mobility (UAM) innovations, will be launched into the transportation market. The solutions build on technologies that are developed under Europe’s Clean Sky 2 and Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) 2...
Developed primarily by engineers from NASA and MIT, the wing is made from thousands of triangular components with matchstick-like struts, bolted together in a lattice framework. This lattice is then covered in a thin layer of polymer material similar to the struts. The resulting wing structure is comprised mostly of empty space, forming a mechanical metamaterial that com...
The benefits of hybrid power trains are hotly debated, not least within The Engineer’s comment section. While electric propulsion obviously cuts emissions of propulsion systems in use – that is to say on the road for hybrid vehicles and in the sky for aircraft – the emissions associated with battery charging might or might not outweigh these benefits, depending on who yo...
Wearing a distinctive livery representing a giant turtle, and named “Flying Honu” (a Honu is a Hawaiian green sea turtle), this aircraft is registered JA381A (cn 262) ANA ordered three A380s, and plans to deploy them on its routes to Honolulu in Hawaii – one of Japan’s key tourist markets. The aircraft will be in a higher density layout reflecting the tourist natur...
Cardiac arrest is the leading cause of natural death in America, with more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cases each year, according to the American Heart Association. For every minute that a victim of cardiac arrest waits to receive defibrillation, their odds of survival decrease by about 10 percent. By using drones to deliver AEDs, Flirtey’s technology will increase the ...
Neva Aerospace has announced its SpaceBridge concept – SpaceBridge networks for “Charging and re-provisioning station for electric and hybrid unmanned aerial vehicles” (patent protected), would provide the power platform for wide area operations of aerial electric vehicles, manned (flying cars) or unmanned (drones). Neva Aerospace has developed underlying propulsion t...
The company say the K-Light has the same handling and user-friendliness as the Knight, but is easier to launch, easier to carry and travel with, and has slightly better handling. It’s for, Performance-oriented weight watchers looking for a versatile, fast and LIGHT wing for their skyborne adventures. It is well-suited for air travel, and great for any hike&fly XC adve...
NASA announced this week that it is one step closer to testing successful sonic-boom-mitigation technology on a demonstration aircraft, a move viewed as critical to repeal of the current prohibition of supersonic flight over land. That prohibition is viewed by many as a limiter on the supersonic business jet market. The agency has completed the preliminary design revi...
While Gulfstream's G650 private jet streaks along at north of 600 mph, conventional choppers like the police or your local traffic reporter might use maxes out around 160 mph. Quick, but not that quick when talking about flight. Airbus thinks it found a way of closing the speed gap without sacrificing a helicopter's inherent advantages: add wings and props to create an a...
Based in Périgny, south-east of Paris, Elixir is aiming for EASA-LSA certification for the all-composite airplane, and the price is set at €150,000 ($168,000), excluding VAT. Performance projections promise a Vne of 172 knots, a maximum takeoff weight of 454 kg (1,200 pounds) and useful load of 280 kg (617 pounds). Baggage capacity is 25 kg (55 pounds). With a 29-gal...
Dubai officials say they want theirs to become the world’s smartest city. A project certain to help reach that goal is developing a fleet of autonomous vehicles to handle a quarter of all passenger transport by 2030. Ignoring critics who scoffed at the claim earlier this year that the German-designed Volocopter, recently renamed the autonomous aerial taxi, would begin t...
The companies will jointly develop a cost-effective hardware device to allow for drones to maintain consistent communication with a UAS traffic management (UTM) system. The digital air traffic management system UTM comprises technologies and services, which have the capability to maintain safe integration and separation of drones and other aircraft and objects in low-...
Airbus Helicopters has unveiled a new version of its H145 light twin-engine helicopter at Heli-Expo 2019 in Atlanta. Visible on the Airbus booth at the show, this latest upgrade brings a new five-bladed rotor to the multi-mission H145, increasing the useful load of the helicopter by 150kg while delivering new levels of comfort, simplicity and connectivity. The new fiv...
In its 21st annual “Turbine-Powered Civil Helicopter Purchase Outlook,” Honeywell forecasts 4,000 new civilian-use helicopters will be delivered from 2019 to 2023, marginally lower than the 4,200 cited in the five-year forecast from 2018. A recent Honeywell survey found about 20 percent of North American respondents said their helicopter fleet utilization is expected ...
The aircraft landed with 4,300 pounds of fuel, falling well within NBAA requirements with nearly 90 additional minutes of flight time possible. The Global 7500 entered service on December 20, 2018. Designed for long intercontinental flights, it boasts the industry’s largest business jet cabin and a maximum speed of Mach 0.925. This week’s flight exceeded the aircraft’...
“This newest TBM family member underscores our firm commitment to constant improvement for the ownership and operational experience with our very fast turboprop aircraft,” said Daher Airplane Business Unit senior v-p Nicolas Chabbert. The 940’s autothrottle, a Garmin system, is the first to be included on a production single-engine turboprop weighing less than 12,500...
The three new C919 narrowbodies, coded 104, 105, and 106, have reached various stages of development at the company’s Shanghai assembly facility in preparation of their upcoming inaugural test flights, according to a source working closely with Comac who spoke with AIN on condition of anonymity. Aircraft 104 is nearing the final assembly stage, 105 has reached its mi...
"With the very first Pilatus PC-24 jet in the world, we have experienced a steep maturing curve," George Antoniadis, president and CEO of the New Hampshire-based company told AIN, adding the airplane continues to exceed PlaneSense' expectations as a versatile and reliable addition to its program fleet. "Pilatus has been an extremely resourceful partner in this entry-into...
Under the plans announced Wednesday, United Airlines regional affiliate GoJet will fly the airplanes for 10 years and launch services out of Newark and Chicago in the second half of the year. United said it plans to place 25 airplanes reconfigured from its existing fleet of CRJ700s into service by the end of the year and another 25 by the summer of 2020. The new a...
” This apparently replaces Lockheed Martin as Aerion’s aircraft manufacturing partner—a development that, when announced in December 2017, displaced Airbus from this central position. Under the new agreement, Boeing will provide engineering, manufacturing, and flight-test resources, as well as strategic vertical content, for Aerion’s AS2 SSBJ. The move also resulted i...
Ivo Boscarol, founder and president of Pipistrel announced the beginning of a long-term relationship with Honeywell to collectively explore and develop solutions for the urban air mobility market. As part of their collective effort outlined in a recent memorandum of understanding, the companies will work together to integrate Honeywell avionics, navigation, flight contro...
What a difference a letter can make. Just take the “E” model of Embraer’s successful Phenom 300. The 300 has been a popular airplane from the start. The company says that at this moment, the factory at São José dos Campos Airport in Brazil just began building the 500th copy, although the E models only joined the family in March 2018. Embraer says 19 Phenom 300Es have joi...
Fuelled by electric engines and autonomous navigation, new air mobility concepts, such as light aircraft and flying-car hybrids – air taxis – will forever change the way we travel around in dense metropolitan areas. The democratic approach, catering to the masses through platform and sharing models, results in exponentially increasing demand for new vehicles. The key ...
Project RACHEL, supported by Innovate UK, is led by venture engineering company Productiv on behalf of the UK’s leading UAV filming specialists BATCAM. The UAV is powered by fuel cells from Intelligent Energy, whose team have significant expertise and a proven track record in producing some of the world’s lightest and most power-dense fuel cell stacks for commercial UAVs...
The constellation represents the eighth and final units of Iridium NEXT satellite in a series of 75 next-generation communications satellites owned and operated by Iridium. Around one hour and 12 minutes after the launch, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket deployed all the satellites into a low-Earth orbit (LEO). After the deployment, the first stage of the rocket landed bac...
Cirrus Aircraft wasted little time in giving its engineers the task of enhancing the Collier Trophy-winning single-engine Vision Jet, and the result of that company-wide effort is the Generation 2 version of the SF50 officially unveiled today. The biggest changes to the 2019 G2 iteration of the Vision Jet are the addition of autothrottle to a new Garmin Perspective To...
"As space at the ground level becomes limited, we must solve transportation challenges in the vertical dimension," said Bell president and CEO Mitch Synder. "We believe the design, taken with our strategic approach to build this infrastructure, will lead to the successful deployment of the Bell Nexus to the world." The full-scale Nexus display builds upon the fuselage...
The aircraft is fitted with a diesel engine to meet military requirements and has an automatic flight control system designed to meet regulatory standards. The VSR700 is a light military tactical unmanned aerial system able to carry multiple payloads, with an endurance of around eight hours. The system will initially offer extended surveillance capabilities for navies, a...
BBJ introduced the 777X at MEBAA, he said, because “of all the BBJs we sell, 29 percent come to the Middle East, and we also see 52 percent of widebody sales come to the Middle East.” The new platform represents “the best of both worlds, combining almost the room of a 747 with the creature comforts of a 787,” said Alex Fecteau, BBJ’s director of marketing. The hall...
The 432lb semi-autonomous, personal multirotor aircraft looks similar to a large drone and is equipped with 18 sets of propellers, motors and batteries. Hexa has a single-seat configuration and is certified as a powered ultralight by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which eliminates the need for a pilot’s licence to fly the aircraft. Compared with trad...
The new BBJ 777X aircraft model will be available in two variants, namely BBJ 777-8 and BBJ 777-9. The BBJ 777-8 is developed to provide a range of 21,570km and equipped with a 3,256ft² cabin area. Featuring a cabin space of 3,689ft², the BBJ 777-9 model has an ultra-long range of 20,370km. It also offers almost unlimited interior design options to provide improved...
The system uses ionic wind, also known as electro-aerodynamic thrust, which generates adequate power to propel the aircraft to fly for longer durations. First identified in the 1920s, electro-aerodynamic thrust is a force that can be produced when a current is passed between a thin and a thick electrode. The aircraft has no moving parts such as propellers, fans and...
