Aircraft

If you've ever ridden in a car that can park itself at the push of a button, you'll appreciate the achievement of Skyryse, which has made a fully-conforming production helicopter that can hover with the swipe of a finger.

The aviation industry has long been in pursuit of technological efficiency and sustainability. In a recent collaboration, Turbotech, Safran, and Air Liquide teamed up to validate the feasibility of using liquid hydrogen to power a turbine engine.

Commercial supersonic flight sped closer to returning as the Boom Supersonic XB-1 prototype reached a transonic speed of Mach 0.95 during Test Flight 11 on January 10, 2025, in the skies over the Mojave Desert in California.

If air taxi services ever take off, you might want to hold onto your hat very firmly. A new FAA report looking at various eVTOL prototypes shows that when they take off and land they have a downwash from rotors equivalent to hurricane-force wind.

When we last looked at air taxi startup Lilium, it was in administration and had laid off most of its employees on December 20. Now it seems there was a Christmas miracle on December 24, with investors throwing out a US$206 million lifeline.

On the heels of eVTOL startup Lilium shutting down, air taxi builder Volocopter may close its doors having filed for insolvency due to lack of funds. On December 26, 2024, the Karlsruhe Local Court in Germany placed the company in administration.

Some historic aircraft seem like a barrel for holding superlatives. One of these, the H-4 Hercules, goes one better because it's also at the center of one of the strangest stories involving possibly the 20th century's strangest man – Howard Hughes.

German eVTOL startup Lilium has ceased operations as of this week – sunsetting a decade-long effort funded with over $1 billion to build electric air taxis, with nary a single aircraft delivered.

BAE Systems has announced that STRIX, a new type of VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft, made its first flight in late October. The flight was reportedly successful, paving the way for production of the unique aircraft.

Chinese "Space Transportation" company, Lingkong Tianxing Technology, has successfully tested its new JinDou400, also known as JinDouyun, ramjet detonation engine nearly twice the altitude of commercial passenger planes and more than doubling the Concorde's fastest speeds during its test.

While Australia's Airspeeder is yet to race its sporty eVTOLs with pilots at the controls, Jetson's founder and CTO Tomasz Patan has taken its One flyer to the air for what's been billed as the birth of the world's first eVTOL air racing.

Technology group Rohde & Schwarz has upped the ante in countering the threat of commercial drones to civil and military aviation with its Ardronis Wi-Fi system that doesn't just knock out drones, but infiltrates them and steals their data.

In a major development at the nexus of military and commercial technology, Archer Aviation and Anduril Industries have announced an exclusive partnership aimed at the militarized vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) sector.

NASA's X-59 aircraft has been marching toward a fest flight since it entered development in 2016 with the goal of bringing back commercial supersonic travel. Next, the agency will test jet-mounted shock-sensing cones to measure its "sonic thuds."

Another day, another wild electrified aircraft concept that reimagines the future of air travel. This time around, it's a turbine-electric hybrid that tilts its ducted electric fans to offer helicopter versatility with airplane range and efficiency.