Aerospace

Major acquisitions can take an enormous amount of time to achieve. A UTC/Rockwell deal would be in the very early stages of discussion.

Additive manufacturing is no stranger to the aerospace industry, having been adopted for rapid prototyping, concept modeling and tooling.

The technology for retrieving powered vehicles in forward flight has remained largely unexplored for decades, since experiments in the 1940s and ’50s.

Scottish cargo UAS; JAXA lift-fan VTOL; long-endurance drones; simpler solar UAS; Frigate FreeJet airliner; designer’s take on airliners

Who will dominate the coming urban air mobility market? At least one industry investor thinks he has a clue and has a list of startups to watch.

Curved touch screens, augmented reality, integrated smart systems that drastically reduce pilot workload—all these are coming in the no-to-distant future

The U.S. is striving to make its electronic warfare systems agile and flexible to offset advances made by potential adversaries.

First used in 2013 by British forces in Afghanistan, ultraportable nano-UAVs are growing in capability and applications.

Super-smooth touchscreen control, unique human-machine interfaces and connections to “open world” applications highlight Thales’ new flight deck.

Avionics used to be closed systems, but the coming of broadband connectivity on board has prompted a rebirth of new architectures to reap the benefits of an open system.

Generation Orbit Launch Services is preparing for a critical series of hot-fire and captive-carry flight tests of its hypersonic flying testbed.

Analysts say that aerospace manufacturing investments in low-cost countries peaked in the 2008-13 and declined significantly in the past three years.

U.S. Air Force Research Lab prepares for lasers; DARPA wants safe autonomy; Air Force tests diesel aero-engine; Ad Astra advances Vasimr.

Will large aircraft ever fly with no pilot on board? It is inevitable, our panel says. But what about passenger acceptance?

Boeing and JAXA are testing lidar-based turbulence detection systems, which may fly on commercial airliners by the mid-2020s.

Hybrid turbine-electric propulsion will require rethinking of aircraft designs to gain greater efficiency benefits by tightly integrating propulsion and aerodynamics.

The reach of a fully realized technology transfer program can be vast, enabling leaps in learning and the restructuring of organizations.

Although United Airlines has had no shortage of growing pains since deciding in 2012 to morph Apple iPads into the perfect electronic flight bag for the flight deck, a less turbulent future is now on the horizon.

Though hybrid and electric propulsion holds great promise, the age of the turbofan is far from over.

Airbus Voom hitches ride with Cabify, Ehang plans bigger eVTOL air taxi, SonicBAT tests humidity’s effect on booms, and smallsat launcher testing picks up pace.

Technology is advancing rapidly but, for once, regulators are ready with airworthiness rules designed to keep pace with innovation. Urban air mobility will put them to the test.

Quiet operation is existential to urban air transport, and industry is also grappling with quantifying annoyance caused by nonacoustic factors.

Uber’s ambitious plan for on-demand urban air transport faces challenges across a broad range of fronts, but no one is saying outright that it cannot be done.

Uber will have to start urban flight operations with the batteries it has, not the ones it wants. But it sees several prospects for progress on the battery performance front.

The Trump administration could learn about defense-industrial policy from the Eisenhower administration’s 1953 review of U.S. strategy toward the Soviet Union.