AIR TAXI BREAKTHROUGH: Joby completes coast-to-coast autonomous flight

Amazing stuff!

(501) AIR TAXI BREAKTHROUGH: Joby completes coast-to-coast autonomous flight - YouTube

Black Hawk helicopters could be converted into unmanned UHawks without cockpit

What else can be converted? Black Hawk helicopters have been around since the 1970s!

Middle East Black Hawks could be converted into unmanned UHawks, Sikorsky says - Breaking Defense ""We're simply taking a customer's existing aircraft and outfitting it for a different purpose ... and then removing a variety of components, like the cockpit," a Sikorsky official told reporters."

Source

Photos of China's tailless J-50 aircraft give hints about stealth profile, likely mission: Experts

What if this is just like a Potemkin village set up by the Communist Party of China? Just kidding!

Photos of China's tailless J-50 aircraft give hints about stealth profile, likely mission: Experts - Breaking Defense "“The design is very low drag, and with two even current WS-10C class engines would likely have significant supercruise capabilities at high altitudes, allowing enhanced range and missile reach,” RUSI's Justin Bronk told Breaking Defense."

Is This Our Best Look At China’s Tailless J-XDS Stealth Fighter?

If We Want Bigger Wind Turbines, then new, giant aircraft may have to transport them. Really!

What an insane, windy argument (non sequitur)! What a folly! Qui bono?

Wind power is so unreliable and intermittent. Large wind power farms may negatively impact local weather and climate and they are an eyesore. We need other energy supply sources like nuclear, hydrogen etc.

Why did our ancestors give up wind power (e.g. wind mills)?

"... Called WindRunner, and expected by 2030, it’ll haul just one thing: massive wind-turbine blades. In most parts of the world, onshore wind-turbine blades can be built to a length of 70 meters, max. This size constraint comes not from the limits of blade engineering or physics; it’s transportation. Any larger and the blades couldn’t be moved over land, since they wouldn’t fit through tunnels or overpasses, or be able to accommodate some of the sharper curves of roads and rails. ..."

Wind Turbine Blade Transport by Giant Aircraft - IEEE Spectrum

Source

Pilot breaks altitude record for solar-powered plane, crossing paths with commercial airliner, his team says

Amazing stuff!

The Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus comes to mind!

"Swiss adventurer Raphael Domjan flew his SolarStratos plane to 31,237 feet over Switzerland, breaking the 15-year-old altitude record for a solar-powered aircraft."

"Swiss pilot Raphael Domjan beat the altitude record for a solar-powered electric plane in a flight that took him soaring to 9,521 meters, or 31,237 feet ...

The SolarStratos plane made the landmark flight from Sion airport in southwest Switzerland on Tuesday, taking advantage of warm air thermals to go beyond the record that has stood for 15 years.

The certified altitude record for a solar plane stands at 9,235 meters, or 30,298 feet. ..."

Pilot breaks altitude record for solar-powered plane, crossing paths with commercial airliner, his team says - CBS News

Credits: The Flyover

Solar-powered plane SolarStratos piloted by Swiss pilot Raphael Domjan is seen taking off at the Sion airport, on Aug. 8, 2025

Raphael Domjan

After Kerala, another British F-35 Stranded Again This Time in Japan with Palki Sharma

Is there something wrong with the F-35?

India: Kerala’s New Tourist Attraction: A $100 Million UK Air Force stealth Fighter Jet F-35 with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! Funny too! I think Palki erred when she tried to make a fun of the stealth fighter jet. I bet the stealth feature needs to be turned on or otherwise the aircraft is visible on radar screens.

What a conundrum for the UK!

Trump’s Executive Order to Make Flying Cars a Reality

Very recommendable!

US Air Force's unmanned YFQ-42A Stealth Fighter Breaks Cover

Good news!

British electric VTOL Air Taxi Completes First European Flight in Open Airspace

Good news! VTOL = vertical take off and landing.

Will supersonic flights across the US soon be allowed?

Good news! I also believe that the ban imposed in the early 1970s were an overreaction to e.g. the 1973 oil embargo imposed by the OPEC countries.

With President Trump in office this might have a chance to become reality!

"U.S. lawmakers introduced the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act in a bid to revise the FAA’s 52-year ban on supersonic flight over U.S. soil. The timing could be crucial for startup Boom Supersonic, which has made progress in developing next-generation supersonic aircraft  ..."

Techcrunch newsletter

Boom - XB-1

Air Force Awards Contract for Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform, F-47. Really!

Will this plane still have a human pilot? Do we still need military airplanes going into the next decade? I have some serious doubts!

"The Department of the Air Force announced today the contract award for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform, marking a major milestone in the advancement of air superiority. The contract, awarded to Boeing, will lead to the development of the F-47, the world’s first sixth-generation fighter aircraft. ...

President Donald J. Trump during a press briefing at the White House. “Nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it'll be known as the F-47.”"

Air Force Awards Contract for Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform, F-47

Rocket plane makes first civil supersonic flight since Concorde's last flight in 2003

Good news! Next time you eat a Kiwi ... 😊

"

• The fastest aircraft ever to climb from ground level to 20 km.
• First New Zealand-designed and -built aircraft to fly supersonic.
• Highest altitude achieved by an aircraft flown from New Zealand.

..."

Rocket plane makes first civil supersonic flight since Concorde "The rebirth of commercial supersonic flight has kind of, sort of come to pass as Dawn Aerospace announces that its 16-ft (4.8-m) Mk-II Aurora rocket-powered aircraft broke the sound barrier with a speed of Mach 1.1 on November 12, 2024."

Dawn Aerospace Achieves Historic Flight - Breaks Sound Barrier and Global Records (original news release)

Look how small this rocket is. A lot smaller than a Concorde! 😊

Is this the future of supersonic flight according to NASA? A supersonic thump!

Amazing stuff!

Federal regulators clear way for EVTOL startups to bring flying vehicles to U.S. airspace. A historic move.

Good news! Human ingenuity and innovation at its best!

Maybe I swap my driver's license for a pilot license! Just kidding!

"Federal regulators have cleared the path for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to share U.S. airspace with planes and helicopters — a win for the burgeoning industry and a timely decision for startups like Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation that are expected to launch air taxi networks commercially in 2025.

The Federal Aviation Administration published Tuesday its much-anticipated final ruling on the integration of “powered-lift” vehicles, a category the FAA revived two years ago to accommodate eVTOLs and one that describes aircraft that can take off and land like helicopters but then transition to forward flight like airplanes. 

“Powered-lift aircraft are the first new category of aircraft in nearly 80 years and this historic rule will pave the way for accommodating wide-scale Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations in the future,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement.  ..."

"... The agency today issued a final rule for the qualifications and training that instructors and pilots must have to fly aircraft in this “powered-lift” category, which have characteristics of both airplanes and helicopters. ..."

Feds clear way for EVTOL startups to bring flying vehicles to U.S. airspace | TechCrunch

With New Rule, FAA is Ready for Air Travel of the Future

A commercial solar-powered Zephyr aircraft flying and staying high in the stratosphere at low speed

Very recommendable! This may have some potential!

Gewaltiger Airbus mit neuer Technik

Empfehlenswert! 

Rolls-Royce fires up its first hydrogen jet engine, a new aviation milestone

Good news!

However, if the burning of hydrogen produces water vapor as exhaust how would hundreds if not thousands of daily flights affect the weather etc.?

"... The tests took place at an outdoor facility at the Ministry of Defence Boscombe Down military aircraft testing site in England, and involved a converted Rolls-Royce AE 2100-A regional aircraft engine. The exercise was carried out in partnership with air carrier easyJet, which has been making moves of its own when it comes to clean aviation. ...
more recently, a multi-million-dollar investment in Rolls-Royce’s hydrogen technology program. That program centers on the development of a hydrogen combustion engine, an aspiration shared by other aerospace giants like Airbus, which plans to use its ZEROe Demonstrator as a flying testbed for the technology. ..."

"Rolls-Royce and easyJet today [11/28/2022] confirmed they have set a new aviation milestone with the world’s first run of a modern aero engine on hydrogen.

The ground test was conducted on an early concept demonstrator using green hydrogen created by wind and tidal power. It marks a major step towards proving that hydrogen could be a zero carbon aviation fuel of the future and is a key proof point in the decarbonisation strategies of both Rolls-Royce and easyJet. ..."

Rolls-Royce fires up its first hydrogen jet engine

https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/press-releases/2022/28-11-2022-rr-and-easyjet-set-new-aviation-world-first-with-successful-hydrogen-engine-run.aspx

Flying-V plane could be the future of sustainable flight

Good news! New civilian air planes in the age of video conferencing! 😄

This new design is still in a very early stage of development.

"... According to the Dutch researchers who came up with this design, the “Flying-V” could cut fuel costs by as much as 20% while it takes over 300 passengers to their destination. It could also be powered by fuel cells to make it carbon neutral.

The Flying-V is the brainchild of Justuce Benad, an intern at Airbus in Hamburg who holds the patent, and Roelof Vos, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft University in the Netherlands, who is leading a team that is currently manufacturing and testing scale models of the design. ...
By contrast, the Flying V’s wings are part of the fuselage, not separate. Passengers literally ride inside one of the two wings, with the cargo sitting at the back of the wings. The aircraft has no tail. Passengers enter the aircraft through two doors placed side by side that speed up boarding and deboarding and improve emergency evacuation. ...
Vos and colleagues at TU Delft, in collaboration with Airbus and KLM, only made a single test flight using a three-meter scaled version of the Flying V. However, this was a rudimentary proof of concept test which involved an engineer running down a field holding the model aircraft above his head. ..."

Flying-V plane could be the future of sustainable flight The revolutionary aircraft design could cut fuel consumption by 20%

This is only an illustration!

Startups, NASA pursuing supersonic commercial flight

Recommendable!