Jets

French company Beyond Aero has released an updated design for the zero-emissions jet it's aiming to put into service by 2030, claiming it'll be considerably cheaper to run than conventional jets, while cutting cabin noise by half.

When we last looked at air taxi startup Lilium, it was in administration and had laid off most of its employees on December 20. Now it seems there was a Christmas miracle on December 24, with investors throwing out a US$206 million lifeline.

Chinese "Space Transportation" company, Lingkong Tianxing Technology, has successfully tested its new JinDou400, also known as JinDouyun, ramjet detonation engine nearly twice the altitude of commercial passenger planes and more than doubling the Concorde's fastest speeds during its test.

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."

Astro Mechanica is an aerospace startup developing what it calls a "turboelectric adaptive engine", efficient for both subsonic and supersonic flight ... using electric car motor technology. And the suck-squeeze-bang-blow works.

We're starting off the week with a mechanical marvel: a homemade dragster with dual Rolls-Royce jet engines that's been 17 years in the making – and could potentially hit 400 mph.

Imagine that you're injured on a remote mountain path but have managed to contact emergency rescue. The first to arrive on the scene could be a small humanoid robot wearing a jetpack if Italian research bears fruit.

After launching a modern pulsejet engine for UAVs back in March, Wave Engine Corporation announced this week that it's delivered the first units. The loud, pulse-combustion fire-breather is officially finding its way to air-bound vehicles.

Wave Engine Corp has aced a demonstration flight of a simple jet engine with no moving parts. A modern version of a pulsejet, the J-1 engine powered a UAV through take-off and several mid-air stop/starts before the aircraft nailed the landing.

Connecticut-based WaveAerospace has announced "the world's fastest multirotor UAS," a "new class of aircraft" that's effectively a quadcopter drone with a raging jet turbine in the middle, capable of insane speeds and all-weather operation.

The US Army is swapping out its Cold War fleet of prop-driven recon planes with ones based on a business jet. Under a new contract, the Army is buying a Global 6500 jet aircraft from Bombardier with options for two more for development prototypes.

Rolls-Royce has taken a major green step, announcing that not only has its giant UltraFan demo jet engine been run at full power on 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), but tests have proven all its current civilian engines are compatible with 100% SAF.