Airbus

Fans of one of the most picturesque — and hair-raising — landings anywhere are lamenting the end of an era. Dutch carrier KLM will no longer fly the Boeing 747 to St. Maarten Airport. Beginning on October 30, the flights will be operated by the smaller, though still pretty cool, Airbus A330 instead. The landings […]

Airbus Group says it is developing the CityAirbus, an autonomous air taxi for individual passenger and cargo transport, scheduled to fly late next year. Launched in February, the vehicle is being developed by Airbus Helicopters. Studies of multi-passenger transport are also in the works. The vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) air taxi would use electric propulsion and multiple-ducted […]

Airbus caused a stir two years ago by announcing an ambitious plan to build a hybrid-electric four-seater for the U.S. light plane market dubbed the E-Fan 4.0, plus a smaller two-seat all-electric trainer called the E-Fan 2.0, both of which the company predicted would enter production before the decade was out. That idea has faded […]

The Airbus E-Fan 1.2, a new version of the aerospace giant’s vision for the future of general aviation flight, will make its U.S. debut next week at EAA AirVenture, highlighting a brand-new hybrid-electric propulsion system pioneered for the project with partner Siemens. This latest version of E-Fan features a gasoline engine that greatly extends the […]

The Perlan 2 atmospheric glider departed the U.S. this week, on a container ship no less, headed to El Calafate, Argentina, following six months of intensive flight testing in Minden, Nevada. Once it arrives in the Andes region, the aircraft will be reassembled to begin its high-altitude climate research mission. Lacking an engine that could […]

When we look down at the wheels of airplanes, we generally see something round. Imagine the surprise when the gate personnel at London Heathrow Airport identified one of the 22 wheels on an Airbus A380 was essentially a perfect square. The A380 had just landed at Heathrow, and the British Airways flight had arrived after […]

The rudder travel limiter of the Indonesia AirAsia Airbus A320 began acting up in January 2014. Attempts to fix it were unsuccessful, and failures became increasingly frequent. In the course of 74 flights between December 19 and December 27, 2014, the airplane’s electronic centralized aircraft monitoring system, or ECAM, reported more than 30 faults. Many […]

The first Airbus jetliner produced in the United States has successfully completed its first test flight, launching a new era for the European conglomerate, which is proudly flaunting its “Made in the USA” milestone. The Airbus A321 took off from the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley in Mobile, Alabama, at 9:36 a.m. on Monday, performed its […]

Airbus Helicopters reached a major milestone in the development of its all composite H160, which previously went under the codename X4, this week as the second prototype of the twin-engine helicopter took its first flight on Tuesday. This prototype is the first to fly with the 1,100 shp Turbomeca (Safran) Arrano engines. This is the […]

Airbus is claiming it has wrested away the title of the world’s best-selling aircraft manufacturer in its ongoing battle with rival Boeing, but the European jet maker still has a way to go to catch up in actual plane deliveries. Airbus said it received 1,036 orders for its jets in 2015, well above the 768 […]