Aircraft

India's eVTOL industry sees major progress as Sarla Aviation's Sylla 1.0 demonstrator has gone from the drawing board to mid-air in under a year, completing integrated flight testing for the ambitious company's upcoming air taxi.

A team of students in Pisa has turned the humble paper airplane into a full-blown engineering project. ICARUS didn’t just look hugely impressive on the ground, it flew far enough to earn a Guinness World Record.

The FAA is clearing the way for the return of commercial supersonic air travel by revamping regulations for faster-than-sound aircraft for the first time since 1973 – to reflect progress in aviation engineering and the removal of prejudicial attitudes.

Electric flight seems to be all the rage, but its place in the aviation market has yet to be worked out. We talked to Ralph Müller, CEO of H2Fly, to discuss the state of play of electric aircraft, hybrid hydrogen fuel, and the future of the industry.

Toyota-backed SkyDrive's multicopter has achieved stable flight at 100 km/h, proving its wingless design handles real aerodynamic loads. The milestone feeds Japan's JCAB certification process and keeps 2028 commercial launch in sight.

For more than a century, pilots have relied on the same basic toolkit to steer a plane: flaps, ailerons, rudders – hinged surfaces that physically deflect airflow to change direction. A radical new experimental drone aims to throw all of that out.

An electric aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like a regular plane just completed its first piloted flight with a new full-scale prototype. Vertical Aerospace is accelerating toward commercial certification, targeted for 2028.

At this year's ILA Berlin Air Show, Airbus Helicopters unveiled its latest entry into fully autonomous flight, the U145 twin-engine helicopter. Based on the company's H145 platform, the aircraft replaces the cockpit with clamshell cargo doors, freeing up additional space for payloads.

Electra provides a glimpse of the airliner of 2050 with its hybrid aircraft concept capable of carrying over 100 passengers while using electrification, advanced aerodynamics, and integrated airframe-propulsion design to up efficiency and cut emissions.

A crewed aircraft named the Helios Horizon has flown on solid-state batteries for the first time, logging a 60% energy density leap over lithium-ion that could finally make commercial electric aviation a reality.

To cut costs and emissions, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport is rolling out a pilot program using a semi-robotic ground tug called TaxiBot that allows pilots to taxi airliners around the airport without using their main jet engines.

The venerable Cold War SR-71 Blackbird may be looking nervously at its laurels after Hermeus's latest Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 uncrewed prototype broke the sound barrier at Spaceport America over the White Sands Missile Range airspace in New Mexico in March.

AutoFlight has flown its 20-meter (65.6-ft) V5000 Matrix in coordinated formation with two smaller eVTOLs – a systems milestone that brings electric aviation's most ambitious aircraft one step closer to commercial service.

A new frontier for autonomous flight appears to have been breached as Merlin, Inc. introduces its Merlin Pilot for Commercial Cargo AI-powered flight system that aims to eventually bring pilot-free flight to large cargo aircraft.

CycloKinetics, a US propellant company, has unveiled a new family of superfuels for aircraft, missiles, and rockets that increase fuel performance by 32%. Aimed at the defense market, the fuels could allow vehicles to fly farther while carrying heavier payloads.