Aircraft

For the past 10 years, Sierra Nevada Corporation has been chasing the dream of creating a small, lifting-body spacecraft that could be used to deliver cargo and eventually humans to the International Space Station. Fittingly, that spacecraft is known as Dream Chaser, and on Wednesday it took another step toward SNC’s goal of achieving orbital […]

As Gulfstream nears FAA certification for its new series of luxury business jets, the G500 and G600, the company announced it has flown the final G600 test aircraft. The G500 and G600 are both highly advanced bizjets incorporating fly-by-wire, touchscreen avionics and active control sidestick technology. This is the fifth G600 test bed Gulfstream has […]

It is not often that a fully aerobatic airplane is certified. But just this week the team at Bentonville, Arkansas-based Game Composites saw their GB1 GameBird receive its certification. The FAA signed the Part 23 paperwork yesterday — about four months after the European Aviation Safety Agency gave its approval. The GameBird was hatched in […]

The General Aviation Manufacturers Association and Build A Plane opened registration earlier this week for the 2018 Aviation Design Challenge. The annual competition promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills through aviation to U.S. high school students. This year, 93 schools from 31 states and Washington, DC, registered for the competition, an 18 percent […]

As the certification of the PC-24 Super Versatile Jet inches closer, Pilatus announced it is discontinuing the product that helped grow the company decades ago — the PC-6 Porter. The Porter has become known as a terrific short- and unimproved field performer and it’s seen one of the longest continuous production runs of any airplane […]

The number of single-engine airplanes capable of hauling a ton of cargo or six people around are pretty limited these days. Cessna’s Caravan is a top choice, but that $2.2 million price tag often puts it well out of reach for many pilots. When I spent a day with a Cessna Turbo 206 in Wichita, […]

Okay, so it’s not a flying car in the sense we grew up imagining, but Airbus A^3’s octocopter personal aerial vehicle, Vahana, is still quite impressive. Utilizing eight propellers mounted on rotating wings, Vahana is capable of vertical take-off and horizontal flight. The landing, however, is where it gets tricky. “Takeoff is fairly scripted,” Sanjiv […]

The USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum had a full plate on Saturday, welcoming visitors at Pier 3 in Alameda, California, for two new additions. The day began with the unveiling of the museum’s latest restoration effort: an FM-2 Wildcat that was recovered from Lake Michigan in 1994. Obtained by the museum in 2006, […]

With slightly more than a year’s worth of work from start to finish, Blackhawk Modifications said Friday that its efforts to earn approval for their XP67A engine upgrade STC were approved by the FAA. The XP67A STC focuses on improvements to the Beechcraft King Air 350. The Blackhawk STC begins by exchanging the stock Pratt […]

As if winning the inaugural Flying Innovation Award at AirVenture 2017 wasn’t already a noteworthy accomplishment, HondaJet hasn’t left the spotlight just yet. Honda Aircraft Co. announced this week that the HondaJet was the most delivered light jet of the first half of 2017, with 24 airplanes were shipped out to buyers in North America […]