Pinnacle Airlines, the third-largest holding company for U.S. regional airlines, is citing a “race to the bottom” among the country's regionals as a major contributor to its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month.

The Antonov An-148 regional jet has never been the kind of industrial darling of the government as the Sukhoi Superjet 100, and it has faced many challenges in development. Ironically, now that the program is reaching operational highs, its prospects are at their bleakest. A weak order backlog is drawing into question the Ukrainian-Russian program, developed by Antonov's Kiev-based design bureau and built under license by Russia's VASO plant. But VASO officials are not ready to throw in the towel yet.

After validating assumptions on the manufacturing cost and efficiency of laminar flow, Boeing says it is proceeding with a baseline design that will apply the technology to the horizontal and vertical stabilizers of the 787-9, but not the wing. “We did it where it is most practical,” says Chief Project Engineer Mike Sinnett, who accompanied ZA003, the third 787-8 flight-test airplane, to its presentation at Chile's Fidae air show here in late March.

As technologies mature and delivery dates for many new products near, the cabin interiors and inflight entertainment (IFE) supply chain must deliver on many its promises—and soon. A host of new services particularly in the IFE world are being installed on aircraft worldwide and, with broadband Internet and communication applications becoming widely available, the key question is whether passengers will use the new services to the extent expected.

Boeing will roll out the second 787-8 destined for Air India from its new South Carolina assembly plant this month, marking another step in that state's expansion as one of the American South's rising stars in aviation manufacturing.

Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee has released the first data retrieved from the so-called black boxes of the UTair ATR 72-200 turboprop that crashed shortly after takeoff from Tyumen’s Roschino airport on April 2 killing 31 of the 43 people onboard.

Airbus has started the final assembly process of the A350 in Toulouse, kicking off a two-year period in which the aircraft maker hopes to validate the new twin-widebody in ground and flight demonstrations before it begins customer deliveries in 2014. The first aircraft assembled will serve as the static ground-test article. The second A350-900 (MSN1) will be the next aircraft down the line and the first flight aircraft. Assembly is to start in the summer and first flight is to occur in 2013.

The U.S. faces a critical engineering shortage. U.S. high school students' science and math scores are off the international pace. Competitiveness is at risk. That's the conventional wisdom, now elevated to accepted truth. But a group of academics now argues that these assumptions are flat wrong.