Aircraft

Van’s Aircraft, well known for a long-line of two and four-place kits now numbering more than 10,000, will soon begin building complete aircraft on a new assembly line the company is creating in Aurora, Oregon, for future RV-12iS and RV-12-iST SLSA models. The move is seen as the next step in a plan Van’s began […]

Yakima, Washington-based CubCrafters can now start shipping its certified XCub to Canada and Japan as the company has achieved validation for the Type Certificate in the two countries. CubCrafters already delivered the first Japanese airplane after the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) validated the TC of the two-seat taildragger. Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) also […]

I’m hanging out with photo­grapher Jeff Berlin and Quest’s chief demo pilot Mark Brown beside the stunning Green River, which through the millennia has carved a deep gorge flanked by dramatic red rock cliff walls through Canyonlands National Park in Utah. The river begins at the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and feeds into the […]

Bye Aerospace is developing the lightweight composite construction StratoAirNet for long endurance commercial and government security needs. The company’s newest aircraft, which will operate as an “atmospheric satellite” UAV, successfully completed its maiden flight last week at Northern Colorado Regional Airport north of Loveland. The flight comes just a few months after another of the […]

Stratolaunch announced the development of a new family of launch vehicles.

The Perlan glider team is continuing its mission to reach greater heights. The team is currently in South America attempting to catch the mountain waves of the Patagonia mountain range in the southwestern corner of Argentina. A Grob Egrett turboprop towed Perlan 2 on its 48th flight to just over 44,000 feet before releasing it […]

Greensboro, North Carolina-based Honda Aircraft Company announced it has started delivering the upgraded version of its light twinjet, the HondaJet Elite. The company announced the modifications earlier this year and is replacing the inaugural HA-420 model with the Elite version. Upgrades include an increase in the range to 1,437 nm, modifications to the flight planning […]

Late in 1932, the newborn Beech Aircraft Co. flew its first product, a five-seat biplane with a 420 hp radial engine and fixed landing gear enclosed in huge fairings. Walter Beech gave it model number 17, since the last model built by the Travel Air company, which he had founded in 1925 with an all-star […]

Embraer’s E190-E2 Profit Hunter demonstration airplane, with its distinctive shark livery, attracted a lot of attention at this year’s Farnborough Airshow in England, where the Brazilian company reported taking firm orders and letters of intent for an astounding 300 airplanes valued at $15.3 billion. After its European success, the eye-catching airplane went on a tour […]

Spend even a few minutes comparing the operation of an avgas-powered engine to a diesel—also known as a compression-ignition engine or a jet-A power plant—and a number of diesel benefits jump right out. Diesel engines don’t have spark plugs, and demand no magnetos. Jet-A-burning piston engines are water-cooled too, meaning they’re less susceptible to overheating […]