John was editor of Aviation Week's ShowNews for nearly two decades. He retired in 2020. His background in business journalism before joining Aviation Week includes stints at Reuters, the American Banker daily banking newspaper and as business news editor at the Milwaukee Journal and the Cincinnati Enquirer.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast, John has been a private pilot for 34 years and won an award at EAA Oshkosh for his restoration of a vintage British Auster army spotter aircraft. He is currently building a 1920s Staaken Flitzer biplane from plans. John attended his first Farnborough Air Show in 1952, when just eight months old.
Sikorsky’s futuristic X2 high-speed helicopter technology demonstrator made its first flight Aug. 27 in Horseheads, N.Y., in the hands of chief test pilot Kevin Bredenbeck. The single-engine fly-by-wire aircraft features coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller that Sikorsky believes will revolutionize the helicopter world with cruise speeds of up to 250 knots – some 100 knots faster than current production helicopters.
John Morris (Oshkosh, Wis.), Frances Fiorino (Oshkosh, Wis.)
Neither fuel prices nor a deteriorating economy kept aviation enthusiasts from their appointed rounds of EAA AirVenture 2008 and its new technology offerings.
The overall market for helicopters is stronger than ever and shows no signs of abating. But while industry executives can point to record sales and backlogs, they are working to move production levels to a permanently higher plateau from which to meet demand for nearly 10,000 new civil helicopters during the next 10 years. That’s the order of magnitude projected by both Honeywell and Rolls-Royce in their latest forecasts, released last week at the Helicopter Assn. International’s Heli-Expo, held in Houston Feb. 24-26.
