Latest News on Airlines, Airplanes and General Aviation

Last month, Phoenix enduring a blistering heat wave , with temperatures so high that airport officials had to cancel dozens of flights. The reason was two-fold. First off, some jet engines risk catching on fire in extreme heat. And when air gets hot, it expands and becomes less dense—so an airplane’s wings can’t generate enough…

Pilotless aircraft, flying electric vehicles and bespoke air cabins are the future of flight, Airbus said yesterday. Paul Eremenko, the European plane-maker’s chief technological officer, painted a picture of skies buzzing with new flight forms at the RISE tech conference held in Hong Kong. Airbus is already testing out what it calls a “module” cabin…

The Airbus A380 superjumbo may sprout extended wings as the European manufacturer intensifies studies into the addition of curved extensions aimed at reducing drag and boosting efficiency. The so-called winglets, which on the A380 would each measure as much as 5 meters, could reduce fuel burn by up to 4 percent by dissipating the vortexes…

Boeing has announced that it is going to begin studying autonomous flying technologies that could eventually be implemented in passenger airliners, according to Reuters . “The basic building blocks of the technology clearly are available,” said Mike Sinnett, Boeing‘s vice president of product development. The announcement comes a week and a half before the annual…

Irkut Corporation/EPA carried out the maiden flight of its new MS-21 medium-range passenger aircraft on Sunday, its first post-Soviet foray into production of a mainline commercial aircraft which it hopes will rival those of its western competitors. In a surprise statement, manufacturer Irkut Corporation and its state-controlled parent company United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) said an…

The main disappointment of the week when it comes to aviation advances was the half-baked reporting of claimed ‘assistance’ for the very long running Aerion as2 supersonic corporate jet ‘successor’ to the defunct Concorde from the engine designer and maker GE.  Even Bloomberg went soft on this. In this report it says the as2 is…

U.K. engine maker targeting position on new mid-market jet CEO East says no ambition as yet to seek partner for project Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc will bid to power a new short-haul jetliner being designed by Boeing Co. as the U.K. engine maker seeks to re-enter a market it quit in 2011. Rolls is preparing a…

It may not be quite like the Jetsons, but for over a million dollars you too can soon fly around in a car. A Slovakian company called AeroMobil unveiled on Thursday its version of a flying car, a light-framed plane whose wings can fold back, like an insect, and is boosted by a hybrid engine…

Boeing and JetBlue have turned their sights to hybrid-electric planes. The two aviation giants revealed this week that they are investing in a little-known company called Zunum Aero , a startup developing alternative propulsion aircraft. Zunum is working to build 10-50 seat planes that ‘sip fuel only when they have to,’ and the firm claims…

 Ten months after the first flight of the E190-E2, today Embraer performed the inaugural flight of another member of the E2 family, ahead of schedule. This Wednesday, the E195-E2, the largest aircraft of the family–and the most efficient aircraft in the single aisle jet market—took off for the first time. The flight, originally scheduled for…