Airbus

The French commercial jet manufacturing giant Airbus this week held the official opening of its first manufacturing facility in the United States, at a sprawling new plant in Mobile, Alabama. The facility has been in operation since July and Airbus expects to deliver its first U.S.-built airplane next year. The $600 million, 53-acre facility will […]

Disrupt or be disrupted. It’s one of the hard lessons emerging in today’s tech-fueled economy, in which the frenetic pace of innovation means not only seeing new ideas materialize with dizzying speed but also watching as they threaten to obliterate entire industries that came before them. We’ve glimpsed this trend in aviation already with everything […]

Since the earliest days of powered flight, propulsion technology has mattered more than anything else in humankind’s quest to break the bonds of earth and rise triumphantly into thin air. For the Wright Flyer it was a 180-pound, 12-horsepower gasoline piston engine built by Orville and Wilbur’s trusty mechanic, Charles ­Taylor. For the P-51D Mustang, […]

Airbus Group’s E-Fan demonstrator was able to successfully cross the English Channel on Friday morning, mirroring Louis Blériot’s historical flight nearly 106 years ago. But the record flight is already proving controversial. Taking off from Lydd Airport in southern England, the twin-fan electric airplane completed the flight in 38 minutes, reaching a cruise altitude of […]

Airbus Helicopters used the stage at the Paris Air Show to announce a two-year development phase for a new model code-named the X6 that would emerge as a modern-day replacement for the 1970s-era Super Puma. Airbus Helicopters CEO Guillaume Faury said the X6 would primarily target the oil and gas industry as well as search […]

Airbus Group today announced plans to build a factory in southwest France where it will manufacture the E-Fan 2.0, a two-seat electric airplane that is due to hit the market about two and a half years from now. Airbus will break ground next year on the final assembly plant in the town of Pau near […]

Recent general aviation and air carrier accidents

We’ve all seen spectacular air show performances with fighter jets or aerobatic piston airplanes flying in formation of various configurations. But it is not every day that you see five 590,000-plus-pound commercial passenger jets flying an Echelon or Diamond formation. Airbus recently released a video of just such a flight with five A350 XWB (extra […]

Airbus Group Chairman Allan McArtor and Aerion founder Robert Bass toasted their companies’ new collaboration to bring a supersonic business jet to the market, raising champagne glasses together on the NBAA Convention show floor in Orlando, Florida, yesterday afternoon. Asked by a journalist in attendance how far Airbus plans to take the sleek Aerion AS2 […]

The 2014 Farnborough International Airshow in England could go down as the watershed event that finally validates electric-powered flight after powerhouse Airbus not only flew its E-Fan demonstrator but also announced plans to enter production with two- and four-seat models through a new subsidiary in France called VoltAir. Airbus initially will target the training market […]