Test Flights

Global shipping giant UPS has teamed with Ohio-based electric truck and drone developer Workhorse Group to trial of a drone that launches from the roof of a delivery vehicle to handle out-of-the-way stops, while the driver continues making other deliveries by road.

BAE Systems has refitted a Jetstream 31 test aircraft previously used in autonomous flight research as a testbed for a series of trials aimed at proving the safety and reliability of satellite-communications based autonomous aircraft technologies.

The Airbus A350-1000 made its maiden flight yesterday. The A350-1000, the longest and largest of the three A350 XWB base models, took off from Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, France, and flew for four-hours and 18-minutes, above southwestern France before touching back down at 3:00 pm.

A collaborative project has come a step closer to zero emission passenger flights with the first flight of a hydrogen fuel cell four-seater electric aircraft. The twin-cabin, (relatively) low-noise HY4 took off at 11:15 am (local) today for a quick zip around Stuttgart Airport.

SpaceX​​ isn't the only private company racking up space firsts. Having successfully flown to space and completed a powered landing last November​, Blue Origin's New Shepard booster​ on Friday became the first rocket to repeat the feat.

SpaceX has shown off its new party trick with the release of a video of the Crew Dragon manned space capsule conducting a powered hover test.

Switzerland has joined an elite club with its first business jet taking to the air. With the call sign of HB-VXA, the twin-engine prototype Pilatus Aircraft PC-24 Super Versatile Jet made its maiden flight, traveling from Buochs Airport in a 55-minute journey across central Switzerland to Brünig.

When you're developing something as complex and ambitious as a flying car, you've got to expect a few hiccups along the way – and Slovakia-based AeroMobil certainly experienced one last Friday, when its AeroMobil 3.0 prototype crash-landed.

A Portuguese company that wants to use drones to provide internet access to offline areas of the world has completed its first test flight. Quarkson plans to use solar-powered SkyOrbiter drones that could stay airborne for years at a time and will fly up to altitudes of 22,000 ft (6,700 m).

In anticipation of more ambitious planetary missions, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with Masten Space Systems have recently tested new landing technologies using a vehicle called the Autonomous Descent and Ascent Powered-flight Testbed.

The European Space Agency is preparing to test the atmospheric re-entry capabilities of their new early concept spaceplane, the Intermediate eXperimental test vehicle IXV (IXV), slated for launch later this year atop a European made Vega rocket.

NASA has successfully carried out the first of three airborne tests for its Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), a saucer shaped test vehicle which will one day be used to slow down scientific payloads entering the atmosphere of Mars.