Legal hurdles remain in latest stab at low-cost services

When presented next month, NASA's fiscal 2015 budget request will be the first to be shaped by a new strategy for aeronautics research. The tough choices made by the agency to align its limited aeronautics funding with that strategy will become clear. Research into ultra-efficient subsonic and low-boom supersonic aircraft will make the cut, as will efforts to increase system safety, efficiency and autonomy, but work in areas such as rotorcraft and all-electric light aircraft are hanging in the balance.

As they reach cruise altitude, the crew of the high-wing Boeing airliner throttle back its twin turbofans to idle. Verifying that battery levels are adequate, they then do something that would be unthinkable in today's aircraft: They shut down the gas turbine core of each engine.

Modification work is in full swing, but will until end of 2015

The drag-reducing benefit of flying in formation has been known for decades—far longer if you are a bird—but making it practical is the challenge. Geese join up in V formations when they migrate, but all are headed in the same direction; finding opportunities for formation flying within military and commercial air-transport networks crisscrossing the globe is harder.

The “Big Three” Persian Gulf carriers—Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways—are increasingly heading in different directions and distinguishing their strategies. Etihad has created the first part of its “Etihad Regional” system; Qatar is venturing into Saudi Arabia with a new affiliate airline, while Emirates remains a purely widebody hub-and-spoke carrier.

A trial to reduce the need to stack arriving aircraft at London's busy Heathrow Airport will have international implications. The trial, the second phase of a series called Topflight, aims to extend the horizon of arrival-planning for the airport's air traffic controllers beyond U.K. airspace out 350 nm into Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Ireland.

Engine makers look for new turboprop opening as India seeks regional aircraft proposals.