Aircraft

After restarting production in Kerrville, Texas, following a hiatus, Mooney has seen strong interest in the turbo-normalized Acclaim Type S — the fastest single-engine piston airplane on the market — along with its normally-aspirated sibling, the Ovation 3. Mooney announced this week that since the first Acclaim was delivered at AirVenture this summer, where 10 […]

How did a highly advanced avionics system built for multimillion-dollar business jets wind up in the cockpit of a stock Beech Bonanza? Sorry, the Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion flight deck isn’t a new option coming soon from Beechcraft. Instead, the Bonanza featured in the video below is serving as a flying test bed for […]

If you saw the red, black and white Sportsman at the Glasair booth at AirVenture this summer, it may not have looked a lot different from the airplanes the company has displayed in the past. But the bright green lettering on the side of the nose and the modified bottom cowl tell a ­different story. […]

After a continued battle between UAV operators and the FAA, the agency has reached a decision to allow for more extensive commercial use of drones for the purpose of film production. The agency said today it has granted regulatory exemptions to six video production companies, the first step in allowing the film and television industry […]

“Landing gears are made retractable in all modern high-speed airplanes. The drag of fixed ‘under-carriages’ used in old-type, and still in small and slow airplanes, is avoided in this manner.” Thus wrote Sighard Hoerner, the great compiler of drag data, in 1951. One of the oddities of the present moment is that of the three […]

Aerion Corp., the company that has been working for more than a decade to bring a supersonic business jet to market, will receive technical and certification support from Airbus in its quest to fly the revolutionary would-be airplane before the decade is out. For its trouble Airbus will receive access to Aerion’s proprietary natural laminar […]

The quest for low-cost, environmentally friendly flight continues. One company working on a solar powered all-electric two-seater called the Sun Flyer is Aero Electric Aircraft Corp. along with its development partners Bye Aerospace and German PC Aero. AEAC has started conducting research and development flights with a single-seat technology demonstrator at Centennial Airport (APA) near […]

Dassault announced this week that it is working on certification that will allow its Falcon 7X tri-engine long-range business jet to operate at airports located at altitudes up to 15,000 feet. The 7X has successfully flown out of the Daocheng Yading Airport, the world’s highest commercial airport at 14,472 feet, just a few feet short […]

Fascination with creating the fastest airplanes has existed since the dawn of aviation. The first air races sprung up as early as 1909 and speed records quickly reached new highs, pushing aerodynamic engineers to reduce drag. As engine technology advanced, aircraft were designed around these new power plants, and over time the introduction of wind […]

Doc’s Friends, the Wichita-based nonprofit organization that is restoring the B-29 Superfortress Doc to flying condition, says the historic airplane will be ready to fly as soon as the avionics, fuel tanks and a few other last remaining items are finished. The goal is to get the airplane back in the air by the end […]