Unmanned aircraft in the news: UAV lands on car; Coyote prowls hurricanes; Black Hawk gives UGV a ride; DHL’s delivery drone evolves; Caterpillar teams up.
Australian researchers pursue a different approach to cutting launch costs—a wing-borne, fly-back booster and a reusable, scramjet-powered second stage.
Sluggish aircraft industry growth is threatened by several looming macroeconomic trends, and the jetliner primes’ lofty production goals appear out of line with economic reality.
Despite the restrictions that come with a Section 333 FAA exemption, quite a few entities seem to think the chance to operate a business drone is worth the effort and expense.
Forging an integrated engine company out of the various Chinese government businesses will be a huge managerial challenge. Design institutes and factories are scattered across the country, and Chinese state organizations are jealous of their autonomy.
With more than $18 million pledged through a crowdfunding campaign, startup XTI Aircraft moves ahead with bold plans to develop a ducted-fan vertical-takeoff business aircraft.
NASA, which invested $400 million in the project on top of a further $250 million invested by industry partners, says the potential payback to airlines could be significant.
Aviation is, by and large, an incredibly safe mode of transportation. But it wasn’t always so, and there are challenges coming soon. Join Editors Jim Asker, John Croft and Bill Sweetman as they discuss the history and future of aviation safety and read the special report.
Although the geared turbofan (GTF) is certified and meets all performance requirements, originally scheduled A320neo launch operator Qatar Airways flagged the start issue as a reason for not taking delivery of the aircraft as planned in December.
After its December first flight, NATO’s first Alliance Ground Surveillance Global Hawk is being mated with its radar sensor for test flights in the U.S. and Europe.
The big consumer electronics show in Las Vegas recently drew A&D eyeballs with chatter over autonomous cars, UAVs and the technology tie-in with the Pentagon’s Third Offset.
The civil aviation sector is already a huge trend-setter in the adoption of additive manufacturing, contributing 12% to the industry’s global revenue in 2013, and all indications are that this will continue to grow.
Accurately predicting the maximum-lift performance of transport aircraft is still a challenge, so Airbus and DLR are working to improve computational tools and wind-tunnel testing.
With the goal of eliminating the arrays for nonstructural aerials on current intelligence-gathering aircraft, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is developing spray-on and load-bearing conformal antennas.
