Flight

The Mars Helicopter drone may be scheduled to launch soon, but it's still just a single aircraft that will be useless if it conks out. With that in mind, scientists are now looking into an alternative – fleets of tiny, cheap "Nanocardboard Flyers."

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc has announced that one of its MQ-9 Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) has completed its first ferry flight. On January 8, 2020, the craft flew from Palmdale, California, to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Ordinarily on a helicopter, the main rotor is mechanically linked to the tail rotor, so the spinning of the former causes the latter to do likewise. A new system replaces the tail rotor with four fans, potentially making for safer and quieter flight.

Rolls-Royce and Gulfstream Aerospace have scored a double first as the Gulfstream G700 business jet and two Rolls-Royce Pearl 700 engines made their maiden flights at the same time from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.

One of the challenges in designing micro air vehicles lies in the fact that if their battery is big enough to provide much range, it's too heavy for them to carry. Scientists have developed an alternative, in the form of a sun-powered flapping wing.

Another stunning milestone for the Jetman team, as pilot Vince Reffet demonstrates the new ability to take off from the ground, then hit the gas on the carbon jet wing's four turbine engines and soar away into the sky.

To better understand the behaviour of bumblebees, scientists have used high-speed cameras to observe them in flight, finding that they can enter a type of “economy mode” when carrying particularly hefty cargo.

Researchers have developed a new kind of wing that could dramatically improve the performance of small drones. Inspired by birds and insects, the wing has a leading edge that, as counterintuitive as it may seem, actually causes turbulence.

A giant cargo plane designed to cart around large aircraft components for Airbus has entered service, with three-story tall BelugaXL making its first ever operational flight following an extensive testing regime.

The world's first successful flight of an all-electric commercial aircraft was completed today as a modified six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver took to the skies over British Columbia.

The USAF's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Mission 5 has ended in a surprise pre-dawn landing after a record-breaking 780-day flight. Like the previous four missions, the exact purpose of the highly-classified unmanned spaceplane's flight was a secret, though the Air Force says that its general goals were "risk reduction, experimentation and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies," as well as the deployment of some small satellites.

Australian airline Qantas has just completed a test for the longest commercial flight in aviation history, covering the entire journey between New York and Sydney in one 19-hour marathon leg.