Aircraft

NASA has released a new image providing photographic evidence of Boom Supersonic's XB-1 prototype aircraft breaking the sound barrier. Captured on the second supersonic flight, it used a special imaging technique to record the historic event.

California startup Alef Aeronautics's electric car has released the 'first-ever video in history of a car driving and vertically taking off," on a closed-off California road. Alef's incredibly ambitious Model A is on pre-sale for $300,000.

You may think that if a species died out millions of years ago, its design would be too old to have any applications in our technology. A new analysis of pterosaur bones, however, suggests that they could inspire lighter, stronger aircraft materials.

A surprisingly simple tweak is making a venerable military transport aircraft more efficient. Literally gluing a few microvanes to the rear fuselage of a C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane can result in fuel savings in the tens of millions of dollars.

Boom Supersonic has gone, well, supersonic, its XB-1 prototype breaking the sound barrier today in the skies over the Mojave Air & Space Port in California. With Chief Test Pilot Tristan Brandenburg at the controls, it reached a speed of Mach 1.122.

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.

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.

Looking like a miniature F-22 crossed with an equally small F-35B, SkyDefense's CobraJet is being marketed by the company as an AI-enabled eVTOL interceptor. It sports electric jets capable of speeds of over 200 mph (322 km/h) for taking out hostile drones.

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."

Sometimes you see a vintage plane that makes you scratch your head. Case in point is the US Air Force's X-29 of the 1980s that looks like a fighter with the wings stuck on backwards. Was this a daft mistake or a great leap forward? Let's have a look.

It’s not just the Mulders of the world watching the skies anymore – the Scullys are getting involved. The US Department of Defense (DoD) has released its latest report on UFOs, with some intriguing stats and stories.

Lockheed Martin's famous-but-secret Skunk Works has released a sort-of-new image of a concept for the company's Next Generation Aerial Refueling System (NGAS) military tanker aircraft for in-flight refueling of multiple warplanes.