Aerospace

Design house Dzyne Technologies is flying a subscale model of an VTOL unmanned aircraft that uses its wing as its rotor.

U.K. government investment in civil aerospace R&D is now channeled through the Aerospace Technology Institute, and the organization releases its first strategy to guide where the money will be spent.

Clinic deliveries by UAS; new turbine superalloys in the mix; airline backs biofuel from waste; Embraer to fly ecoDemonstrator; better carbon-fiber repairs.

From kite surfing in the stratosphere to tethered heavy-lifters, unmanned aircraft are enabling out-of-the-box thinking.

The concept for low-energy planetary entry is described as similar to “throwing an air mattress into the atmosphere.”

When massive Stratolaunch program begins to wind down, Scaled Composites promises a return to the Rutan days of smaller, fast-paced projects that result in flight testing of aviation breakthroughs.

Like former U.S. President Harry Truman, he made bold and consequential decisions that damaged his popularity but positioned his organization for long-term success.

Will air transport ever change to embrace ideas such as aerial refueling and seamless rail-to-air transfers? Researchers try to make the case for advanced concepts.

Could the end of the aerospace industry as we know it emerge from a Silicon Valley startup? Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders says the industry needs to work with the tech sector to be ready for disruptors.

If you face a 200-mi.-plus commute to work and back because of congested roads, what would it take for on-demand aviation to provide an answer? NASA aims to find out.

Northrop Grumman takes the oldest Global Hawk flying and shows it can be upgraded to take new payloads using an open system architecture, paving the way to refreshing technology in production aircraft.

Testing combined aircraft tug/passenger bus; volcanic ash ingestion engine tests planned; X-56 continues anti-flutter research; BA reducing A320 noise; Darpa looks for non-GPS weapon seeker.

Big ideas, competitive selection, rapid demonstrations, sparse oversight—all characteristics of the first projects selected under a NASA “Shark Tank-like” initiative to bring a more entrepreneurial element to its aeronautics research.

Electric propulsion is already changing personal aviation. Could a new NASA X-plane pave the way for a revolution in on-demand transport and a rebirth for commuter airlines?

The long-awaited restructuring is at hand, even if the economic and business logic it expresses is defying conventional expectations of how it would unfold.

Honeywell tackles the challenge of fusing data from multiple different sensors to enable unmanned aircraft to see and avoid other air traffic.

Airbus’s E-Fan electric-powered two-seater draws style inspiration from the automotive industry while advancing the light-aircraft art.

Hybridizing light aircraft for safety; MBDA’s highly modular missiles; Embraer’s ‘mixed reality’ cockpit designing; Aircelle’s electro-luminescent display; UAS sensor-tech pipeline inspection demo.

The jetliner supply chain might find itself the victim of someone else’s idea of success. As both Airbus and Boeing consider a further ramp-up of their A320 and 737 single-aisle jetliner families, everyone involved should consider the likely ramifications.

With both Boeing and Aviation Week commemorating their 100th birthdays next year, the two have agreed to create a digital, searchable, living archive of Aviation Week & Space Technology dating back to the very beginnings of human flight.

NASA advances supersonics; robots meet Darpa’s challenge; wood to fuel Alaska flights; UAVs inspect EasyJet airliners; kite-surfing UAVs, “drone”-detecting radar and all-in-one 3-D-printed UAV.

Volcanic eruptions can cause widespread flight disruptions. Now Israel’s Elbit is working to upgrade its low-visibility enhanced vision systems to detect ash clouds.

AFRL updates its unmanned-aircraft sense-and-avoid system to reflect latest position on requirements for access to national airspace.

OEMs must question assumptions about what makes the supply chain competitive and rethink the way they allocate resources accordingly.

It is supersonic chicken-and-egg: a low-boom demonstrator is needed to enable quiet supersonic transport, but is there market demand for a demonstrator?