Aircraft

Bombardier Aerospace has announced new suppliers for the Global 7000 and 8000 long-range business jets. The airplanes will be equipped with the Global Vision flight deck, based on the Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion integrated avionics suite. The avionics system will be essentially identical to the Global Vision flight deck certified by Transport Canada for […]

Honda Aircraft Company president and CEO Michimasa Fujino announced at an NBAA press briefing in Las Vegas that the development program for the company’s HF420 light jet has been pushed back due to a delay in the certification of the GE-Honda HF120 engine. Fujino said the delay is due to a redesign project caused by […]

On Monday at the NBAA Convention, Eclipse Aerospace announced that it was restarting production of its EA500 very light jet. First delivery of the new jet is planned for 2013. Eclipse is calling the new model the Eclipse 550, but it will retain the type certificate of the original while incorporating some noteworthy changes to […]

Bombardier has begun production of the first Learjet 85 test aircraft, the company announced on Sunday at the NBAA Convention. According to Bombardier, teams in Wichita, Montreal and other locations throughout the world are now actively engaged in the manufacturing validation process. A full-length fuselage, as well as several other key parts of the all-composite […]

On the first day of the NBAA convention, Cessna launched a new light midsize airplane, the Citation Latitude, which will sell for around $15 million. The airplane will feature an all new all-metal stand-up cabin fuselage, a wing nearly identical to the Citation Sovereign midsize jet and the Garmin G5000 integrated avionics suite. Cessna announced […]

At the NBAA convention in Las Vegas, Embraer named international film star and martial arts expert Jackie Chan its official brand ambassador. Over the years, the 57-year-old Chan has made more than 100 movies and has estabished himself as a big box office draw around the globe with his clever, funny and frenetic acting, which […]

With certification of the G280 imminent, Pres Henne, Senior Vice President, Programs, Engineering and Test at Gulfstream, announced that extensive flight-testing has shown better than expected performance. At Mach 0.80 with four passengers, the airplane has shown a range of 3,600 nm, 200 nm better than the expected range when the program was first announced […]

A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B completed its first shipboard vertical landing on Tuesday, touching down on the deck of the USS Wasp in the Atlantic during preliminary phases of ship suitability testing. The Joint Strike Fighter will continue shipboard testing during the next two weeks, striving to complete a planned 67 landings on the Wasp […]

While in some people’s minds it might stretch the definition of a “hybrid,” Eurocopter’s electric/turboshaft AS350 helicopter a few days ago successfully completed a flight with an electric backup motor. In this case, the motor doesn’t power the main blades for normal flight but assists during autorotation, which, according to Eurocopter, took much of the […]

The Nextant 400XT has received FAA certification, Nextant Aerospace announced on Wednesday, marking the final step in the approval process for one of the most extensively refurbished business jets on the market. The Nextant 400XT is a remanufactured Beechjet 400A upgraded with Williams FJ44-3AP turbofan engines and Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics. The jet […]