Aircraft

An era of aviation history came to an end after 54 years. On Tuesday the last 747 Jumbo Jet rolled off the production line at Boeing's Everett, Washington, facility. Built for Atlas Air, the 747-8 freighter is the last of 1,574 Jumbos built.

Kit helicopter manufacturer RotorX has stepped into the personal eVTOL fray with its own take on the manned multicopter. The Dragon promises to zip you around at up to 63 mph (101 km/h), with joystick control, auto-landing, and a ballistic parachute.

Aura Aerospace has proposed a crazy new take on advanced air mobility. The five-seat Ranger looks like Darth Vader's shuttle when it's folded up, but it promises to fly further than any normal airliner, with roof-to-roof vertical takeoff and landing.

Airbus says it's on track to have a fully operational megawatt-class electric powertrain, fueled by cryogenic liquid hydrogen, tested in flight by 2026, ahead of a full-scale zero-emissions passenger airliner it plans to put into service by 2035.

There are very few full-size aircraft capable of transitioning between vertical takeoff and landing and wing-borne horizontal cruise flight, so it's a big deal when a company manages the feat, as Archer has now claimed. But the video is a shocker.

You'll have to pilot this next-gen aircraft yourself – although that'll be easier than you'd think. Lift Aircraft says it'll take you less than an hour to learn to fly its Hexa eVTOL, and then you're off on a unique and spectacular sightseeing trip.

Rolls-Royce and easyJet have edged the era of clean aviation a little closer to take-off, with the successful testing of a modern jet engine using hydrogen as fuel, and flight testing in the pipeline.

Archer is targeting FAA certification by the end of 2024, and its first air taxi flights in 2025. With its Maker prototype logging successful test flights, the company has now unveiled Midnight, the four-passenger aircraft it'll push toward production.

Chinese automaker XPeng has updated the design of its AeroHT flying car – a luxury electric sportster with a fold-out vertical-lift octacopter system on the roof. It looks absolutely nutty, but a two-ton flying prototype indicates this is no joke.

Aerospace company Stratolaunch has bold plans to launch swift and repeatable hypersonic flights from its massive Roc carrier aircraft, and has now taken an important step forward with these ambitions.

California startup Alef Aeronautics has shown off a remarkably fresh take on the street-legal eVTOL flying car in its 2025 Model A. This wild design debuts a 2-axis tilting cabin, and a horizontal cruise flight mode unlike anything we've seen before.

Honda Aircraft's stable of light business jets is one airframe bigger after the company introduced its HondaJet Elite II at the 2022 National Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Orlando, Florida.

Korean startup Plana Aero, founded by the guy that led Hyundai/Supernal's early eVTOL program, has begun work on a new long-range, hybrid-electric VTOL air taxi that'll carry up to seven people about 350 miles at speeds up to 217 mph.

After nailing a remotely piloted eVTOL drag race last year, and successfully completing its 250th test flight recently, Alauda Aeronautics has now announced the winner of its first uncrewed Airspeeder EXA race above the salt flats of South Australia.

Chinese electric vehicle-maker XPeng has been developing a teardrop-shaped eVTOL to serve as a flying taxi of the future, and has just flown it in public for the first time at Skydive Dubai in front of 150 onlookers.