Airbus

Airbus is moving ahead with its vision of aircraft with active wing control, working to mimic the behavior of bird flight with wings that adapt their shape on the fly to optimize aerodynamics and lower carbon footprints.

As part of a broader push on part of the aviation industry to reduce its carbon footprint, Airbus has conducted the first ever flight of its giant A380 jumbo jet using 100 percent biofuel, made up of primarily cooking oil.

Airbus, in partnership with CFM International (a joint company of GE and Safran Aircraft Engines), is developing an A380 flying testbed called the ZEROe Demonstrator to examine how hydrogen combustion can be used to power turbofan jet engines.

Lufthansa takes inspiration from superyachts in creating its new Explorer Concept, an airborne explorer yacht with a five-star cabin. The aircraft travels the globe in hours, instead of the days or weeks it would take slower expedition vehicles.

Airbus' latest high-endurance stratosphere drone, the Zephyr S, has set a new altitude record for an Unmanned Aerial System in its class, soaring to 76,100 ft in the skies over Arizona during two flights totaling 36 days aloft.

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.

Airbus is expanding the capabilities of its Flightlab helicopter designed to test out next-generation aviation technologies, by incorporating some advanced hardware geared toward autonomous flight, including LiDAR sensors from Luminar.

Airbus is working on a number of hydrogen-powered aircraft, and it's just found a new angle on cryogenic liquid H2 fuel: using it to supercool the powertrain down to superconducting temperatures, possibly unlocking huge weight and efficiency savings.

Europe is getting into the space manufacturing race as the European Commission awards Airbus a €3-million (US$3.5-million) contract to study the potential for assembling spacecraft in low-Earth orbit using robotic systems.

We're all hoping for electric VTOL aircraft, but France's Ascendance isn't willing to wait for batteries and hydrogen to break through. The company says its Atea hybrid will deliver long-range VTOL travel with just 20 percent of a helicopter's emissions.

Airbus Helicopter's Flightlab flying laboratory based on the H130 copter has taken to the air for the first to perform a series of platform-agnostic in-flight tests of new systems aimed at ushering in next-generation aircraft technologies.

With the move towards electric aviation comes new opportunities to explore what a powertrain looks like, and Airbus is experimenting with a new design that builds entire hydrogen propulsion units, tanks and all, into detachable pods along the wings.