Researchers develop a proof-of-concept lidar prototype that improves the speed and accuracy of ocean scans and allows the collection and transmission of data in real time for production of high-resolution 3-D images.
With the clock ticking toward the first run of the GE9X core in 2015, and manufacturing of the first full engine core components getting underway, GE is counting on these materials to play a critical role in reducing weight and boosting efficiency.
Facing increased competition, Bombardier has updated its popular super-midsize business jet with improved avionics, more powerful engines, new winglets and cabin enhancements. For a modest price increase, the resulting Challenger 350 provides a significant increase in value.
NASA already is learning about distributed electric propulsion from a unique low-cost testbed, as it completes high-power static tests ahead of low-speed taxi trials leading to high-speed runs on the dry lakebed at Edwards AFB, California, in January.
Aviation Week Senior Editor Guy Norris takes us on a test flight of the automatic air collision avoidance system, auto ACAS, with the U.S. Air Force 416th Flight-Test Sqdn.
Unmanned aircraft are most often viewed as augmenting manned aircraft, perhaps eventually replacing some of them, but a more likely future lies in their becoming intimately essential to each other. Two new U.S. research notices give hints of such an outcome.
Flying far is more important than flying fast, Japanese fighter technologists have found in studies aimed at defining their country’s next combat aircraft. Researchers are also emphasizing that Japan’s next fighter should share targeting data and carry a big internal load of large, high-performance missiles.