Aircraft

After shutting down the Vahana program in 2019, Airbus has revealed the new four-seat electric VTOL aircraft it's taking to the air taxi market for 2025. And while it's very pretty, the new CityAirbus's spec sheet is surprisingly underwhelming.

Craft Aero's nine-seat hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft promises 1,000-mile, 345-mph roof-to-roof inter-city hops – and it does so using a diamond-shaped blown box wing configuration and flap-vectored thrust design different to anything we've seen.

Aerospace company Bombardier has rolled out its new Challenger 3500 midsize business jet. Based on the Challenger 300 family, the intercontinental aircraft was unveiled last week in Montreal in a worldwide virtual launch.

Whatever other qualities they may possess, jet fighters are not known for their quiet engines. They could soon become considerably less noisy without any loss in performance, though, thanks to a relatively simple alteration.

Rolls-Royce's high-speed, all-electric Spirit of Innovation aircraft has flown for the first time. On September 15, the speedster prop plane took off from the UK Ministry of Defence’s Boscombe Down site fora 15-minute flight.

Lilium's eVTOL is vastly different to anything else in the air taxi world, using 36 small ducted fans in place of larger rotors. One of the key advantages, says Lilium, is the reduced noise signature – and now we get to hear it for the first time.

Paragon VTOL Aerospace is working on a second-gen version of its nine-seat Soar air taxi design, and it's settled on hydrogen-burning engines that'll deliver monster range figures between 300-900 miles (480-1,450 km) depending on passenger numbers.

One way scientists hope to prevent hypersonic aircraft from overheating is by having the propellant do double duty as a coolant, and newly developed 3D-printed catalysts could be the missing piece to this puzzle.

At the Langley Research Center in Virginia, NASA has completed testing of the eXternal Vision System (XVS) 4K video screen that will take the place of the forward flight deck window for its X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft.

The UK's Samad Aerospace is making progress with half-scale prototypes of its E-Starling eVTOL aircraft, and has now started taking pre-orders for a smaller cargo drone using a similar design and semi-vectored thrust propulsion system.

A milestone for California's JetPack Aviation today. Six years after David Mayman's historic jetpack flight around the Statue of Liberty, the company has made its first two sales: a pair of 6-jet, 120 mph JB-12 jetpacks to an unnamed military buyer.

With its planned SPAC merger just a week away, eVTOL air taxi company Archer has announced a new deal with the US Air Force, a vertiport partnership with Reef, and a preliminary win in its court battle with Wisk over allegedly stolen designs.