Flying

Boeing is lifting another suite of experimental technologies into the air as part of its EcoDemonstrator program. Traveling aboard this time around are 50 projects in all, including ones geared toward smart toilets and others toward improving passengers’ view outside the plane. ​

Like the Wright Brothers, evolution didn’t get flight exactly right the first time. It takes experimentation to find the best design, and now palaeontologists have found one of nature’s quirky side projects – a strange dinosaur that was covered in feathers but had leathery bat-like wings.

On the timeline of the evolution of flight in birds, gliding seems like a logical first step. But new research suggests that some species could have made the jump straight to flapping flight without a gliding phase in the meantime, which could force a rewrite of our understanding of avian evolution.

Traditionally, robots are either airborne or landlubbers – there’s not much crossover. But researchers at Northeastern University have now built a robot that can do both, walking around on two legs before jumping and flying short distances to get over obstacles in its path.

It’s long been thought that spiders were "ballooning" on silk parachutes thanks to the wind picking them up, but a new study has found that the creatures are actually making use of atmospheric electric fields instead.

They're environmentally damaging, and can be frighteningly lethal – by accident, or by design. But they are also things of beauty. Here are 10 of the best examples of aeronautical artistry in history.

Airline passengers browsing the web using in-flight Wi-Fi might be forgiven for thinking they've stepped back in time to the age of dial-up. But now a team at Northwestern University has developed an extension for the Chrome browser that significantly speeds up page loading in the air.

Engineers at Caltech and the UIUC have developed the Bat Bot, a robotic bat with soft, flappable wings that could not only make for a safer alternative to keeping drones aloft with spinning blades, but also teach scientists more about the mechanics at work in natural bat flight.

The Wingboard, designed to place riders behind a plane so they can wakeboard through the sky, has just successfully completed its first wind tunnel flight testing, edging the creator closer to his lifelong dream of recreating the cloudsurfing bear cub from the Disney series Talespin.​

Business class passengers flying with United Airlines will soon be able to enjoy a newly spruced-up experience in not just the aircraft cabin, but the airport lounge too. The United Polaris premium lounge and cabin are aimed at providing serene environments to leave passengers feeling well rested.

Perhaps the key to good long-haul aircraft cabin design is to make passengers forget that they're stuck in a long-haul aircraft cabin. Virgin Australia's new International Business Class cabin may help to do that, with queen-length beds, 18-in HD screens and and a bar at which to booze and schmooze.

​The German physicist behind the Evolo manned multicopter and the Volocopter 2-seater has just taken his first flight aboard another remarkable aircraft: a flying electric scooter.