Aircraft

Archer has released video footage of the first flight of its Midnight eVTOL with a pilot at the controls, though the aircraft rolled down a runway to take off rather than using its rotors to lift it vertically.

Hermeus seems dead keen on fast-tracking its way to hypersonic passenger flight. Its uncrewed subsonic Quarterhorse Mark 1 prototype has completed its maiden flight in the skies over Edwards Air Force Base in California on May 21, 2025.

In what may be a world first, Venus Aerospace has, for the first time in the US, successfully flown a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) that uses supersonic explosions to create thrust. Such engines could help propel future hypersonic vehicles.

Horizon’s Cavorite X7 just made aviation history by pulling off the world's first stable fan-in-wing transition flight. The hybrid eVTOL can take off like a helicopter, cruise like a plane, and recharge its batteries mid-flight for quick turnarounds.

Who needs windows when you can have superefficient transonic passenger flight? That seems to be the reasoning behind Otto Aviation's Phantom 3500 jet aircraft that dumps the portholes in favor of super-laminar flow to lose weight and burn less fuel.

More than 30 years in the making, this long-range, high-speed, flight-tested, two-seat flying car is slated to be certified later this year, with customer deliveries beginning in early 2026. The team tells us an amphibious version could follow.

The word "flying car" immediately puts visions of "The World of Tomorrow" in my head; retro-looking flashy contraptions. If you were to ask Dezső Molnár what his vision of a flying car looked like, he'd simply show you the one he's building now.

A jet-powered "speeder bike" flying through the forest on May the 4th? We speculate on the Volonaut Airbike, question the wild claims, and crunch the numbers to see if it's legit – or just really cool VFX. Spoiler alert: we want it to be real.

AltoVolo is aiming high with its foray into eVTOLs. It plans to offer a personal hybrid-electric aircraft that will deliver 510 miles of range, and hit cruise speeds up of to 220 mph – while making 80% less noise than a helicopter.

Joby Aviation achieved a major milestone on April 22, 2025 when it became the first company to fly an all-electric tilt-rotor eVTOL with a pilot aboard as it transitioned from horizontal to vertical flight and back again.

NASA and Boeing have effectively cancelled the X-66 Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) concept demonstrator aircraft. Officially described as a "pause," development of the thin-wing airplane is being halted in favor of ground-based testing.

After demonstrating a super-efficient, ultra-quiet leaf blower, Whisper Aero has secured funding to fit its WhisperDrive propulsion technology to a glider and begin test flights. Its innovative ducted fans promise extreme efficiency and low noise.

Archer has its sights set on making air taxis a thing really soon. It's just revealed plans for a network of vertiports from which its electric aircraft can take off and land in NYC – so you can beat street traffic and get around town in minutes.

At the Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida, Epic Aircraft has unveiled its high-performance personal and business aircraft, the E1000 AX, which can land itself at the touch of a button in an emergency. In fact, you don't even need the button.

One of the most fascinating aircraft in the eVTOL space has moved into flight testing with a new large-scale prototype. Cyclotech's Blackbird airframe becomes the world's first aircraft to fly with six barrel-shaped "Cyclorotors" for propulsion.