Aerospace

There is virtually no overlap between the two companies, and OEMs may seek commercial concessions but are unlikely to block the transaction.

Wide range of users are benefiting from drone imagery of damage from Hurricanes Harney and Irma, but there will also be important lessons emerging.

Airbus may approve a demonstrator that would continue work toward potential development of a hybrid-electric, single-aisle airliner.

The Chinese understand that what will make or break their industry is what happens in the middle of the value chain, at the component and subsystem levels.

DARPA pursues elegant simplicity; Honeywell launches drone inspection; Airobotics expands into defense; backers boost Lilium eVTOL; tethered drones for disaster response.

Radars are moving to lower frequencies to counter stealth. Can stealth survive?

Europe’s Clean Sky research program drops plan to flight-test Safran’s open-rotor engine as market interest shifts to other concepts.

Airbus launches a project at its Silicon Valley outpost to help fundamentally redefine air traffic management to enable new types and uses of aircraft.

Multi-industry companies armed with knowledge of infrastructure, robotics and AI are betting that their broad expertise can win them a share of the burgeoning robotic inspection market.

GE startup Avitas Systems is taking artificial intelligence into the field to automate and optimize the inspection of industrial assets by drones and robots.

The timing was right—with the needed winds—for altitude record-breaking tests in the southern Andes. Cover credit: Airbus Perlan Mission II

Today’s airspace procedures, like the rules of the road for driving, have evolved over time and are not expected to cope with the 1-2 orders of magnitude increase in air traffic projected by 2035.

University claims a speed record as it develops a jet-powered unmanned aircraft as a testbed for adaptive flight controls, beyond-line-of-sight communications and other technologies.

A340 MSN001, modified to be the Breakthrough Laminar Aircraft Demonstrator for Europe (BLADE), will soon begin a flight-test campaign to show that laminar flow can reduce fuel burn.

The Perlan 2 stratospheric glider has established a new world altitude record for sailplanes after it flew to 52,172 feet over the Andes mountains on September 3.

Drone for Saturn’s moon; solar wing for atmospheric satellite; China develops alumics; robot applies riblets, and new alloy for metal printing.

Guy Norris, Aviation Week Senior editor, talks to us from El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina where Airbus hopes to witness the Perlan Mission II achieve a new world altitude record.

New multirotor unmanned aircraft are coming onto the market. They combine vertical-takeoff-and-landing ease of use with longer flight times to increase productivity on commercial missions.

Inadvertently, decades-old restraints on weapons exports are helping China expand its foothold in the unmanned aircraft arena.

From delivering critical medical supplies to warehouse inventory management, drones are slowly making inroads into the logistics business

Uncertainties about U.S. defense spending and Congressional actions are complicating planning for contractors.

Microsoft’s AI soars; Near Earth to land Vahana; designing for 24-hr. hover; space-hardened computers

Developing and demonstrating megawatt-class electric machines and power converters that are light enough and powerful enough for use in aircraft is a key step in enabling electric propulsion for commercial airliners.

Advanced human-machine interfaces and new technologies are set to make ATC workstations as jaw-dropping as the newest flight decks, if not more so.

Willard Custer’s mid-20th century channel wing is back on the drawing board as a possible way to combine vertical flight with efficient cruise.