Flight Tests

Airbus Helicopters' VSR700 unmanned naval helicopter prototype recently successfully completed its maiden flight. On November 8, 2019, at a drone test center in the south of France, the aircraft carried out a series of tethered flights.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule passed a major milestone today as it successfully completed a launch pad abort test. At the White Sands Missile Range, the unmanned spacecraft lifted off under its own power and executed a 95-second flight.

Virgin Galactic may finally reach space tomorrow, with the company's VSS Unity spacecraft currently being prepared for its fourth powered test flight. If weather and technical issues permit, the spaceplane will reach supersonic speeds on a suborbital trajectory to reach an altitude of about 62 mi.

We’re a step closer to having high-altitude, long-endurance, autonomous aircraft soaring through the skies. UAVOS has now announced that a prototype of the company’s High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS) ApusDuo aircraft has completed the first stage of flight tests.

NASA has tested three new noise reduction technologies on a series of Acoustic Research Measurement (ARM) flights, and managed to cut airframe noise during landing by more than 70 percent.

Autonomous aerial vehicles known as High Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS) can soar at the edges of space for long periods of time. Now, UAVOS has conducted test flights of its ApusDuo prototype, an autonomous, solar-powered aircraft with flexible wings that bend and bounce to keep it aloft.

​After years of development the latest Dream Chaser spaceplane has completed its first captive carry flight test. Hoisted up by a Chinook helicopter, the Dream Chaser will undertake one more captive carry flight test in the near future before embarking upon its first free flight later this year.

Fans of experimental aircraft from the 20th century are in for a treat. NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center has begun uploading its entire historical archive to YouTube, making hundreds of videos highlighting different test flights and strange planes from the past 70 years easily accessible.

After several years of development DARPA has successfully completed flight-testing of one of the most novel, and odd-looking, aircraft designs we've seen in some time – the sub-scale electric X-Plane.

After resuming flight testing last April following a fatal crash, the third AW609 tiltrotor aircraft prototype went through several weeks of ground testing and flight trials in Italy. The aircraft has now been shipped to the US, where icing trials are set to take place through winter.

In the latest of a long series of upgrades, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has announced the maiden flight of the Predator B/MQ-9 Reaper Extended Range (ER) Long Wing.

​The first of the new generation of Boeing 737 MAX airliners to roll of the assembly line made another first today as it took off on its maiden flight.