Airbus Canada, Pratt & Whitney Canada, and the Quebec-based SAF+ Consortium have agreed to collaborate on sustainable aviation fuel research and testing, including flight testing blends of up to 100 percent SAF on an Airbus A220. The project also will concentrate on feasibility studies for establishing local production facilities for power-to-liquid e-SAF in Quebec.
Known as CADAQ-100, the undertaking will contribute to the industry-wide effort to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions for aviation by 2050, as outlined by the Air Transport Action Group and International Air Transport Association (IATA) in their decarbonization roadmaps.
The late mutual fund pioneer, Sir John Templeton, was fond of saying that the four most dangerous words in business are “this time it’s different.” Which brings us to the case of Joby Aviation.
By all accounts, Joby has designed a brilliant eVTOL, the five-seat (one pilot and four passengers) Joby S4 2.0. AIN editor-in-chief, Matt Thurber, who has flown just about everything except the space shuttle, spent some time in the aircraft’s cockpit simulator and emerged proclaiming it no less than a “sea change in the way pilots will operate aerial vehicles of the future” and far simpler to manage than a conventional helicopter.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pennsylvania), flanked by other Republican leaders on his committee, today unveiled his much anticipated FAA reauthorization proposal that would separate the nation’s air traffic control system into an independent organization paid primarily through air carrier user fees and run by an 11-member board. During a press conference on Capitol Hill, Shuster said the bill was “taking on the establishment” by removing the ATC functions from direct funding control of Congress.
The proposal would transition the ATC organization to a federal, not-for-profit corporation over a three-year period. The board would include four representatives of air carriers and two from the general aviation community, along with representatives of the controllers' and pilots' unions and two people appointed by the Transportation Secretary. Shuster, however, stressed that the federal government would remain the ultimate authority over the airspace.
Bryan Burns, who has steered the Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) through its near infancy to a multi-faceted safety organization that offers a variety of safety programs to charter operators, called its latest program—one for flight data monitoring (FDM)—a “natural evolution of the pathway to safety.”
He noted that each program the organization has developed to encourage Part 91 and 135 adoption—from the Industry Audit Standard to the aviation safety action program (ASAP) and safety management system (SMS)—has built on each other. However, it is the ASAP, a non-punitive voluntary safety reporting initiative, that had really helped grow the organization. Now with FDM, ACSF is conducting the same grassroots outreach as it did with ASAP. Burns discussed the association’s evolution with AIN.
Natilus, a California-based aerospace startup developing autonomous cargo airplanes, has successfully flown a subscale technology demonstrator for the first time. The company intends to introduce a family of remote-piloted cargo freighters featuring a blended-wing-body (BWB) design that will be capable of carrying more cargo than traditional airplanes of comparable size. Its initial offering will be the Kona, the smallest model in its planned fleet.
Natilus said initial flight tests of its quarter-scale Kona demonstrator aircraft have validated the performance of the BWB design after three years of extensive wind-tunnel testing. The flights took off from a private runway in Southern California, east of San Diego. During the trials, the aircraft reached speeds of about 70 mph (110 kph), according to Natilus.
Manufacturers, financiers, and leading rotorcraft analysts expect the market for both new and used civil helicopters to remain tight for the remainder of 2023, squeezed by a triumvirate of pressures including inventory, inflation, and continuing supply-chain challenges.
While the civil market has mostly returned to pre-Covid normal in terms of overall new helicopter sales and/or flight hours, price increases have placed additional pressure on the already constrained preowned market. Meaningful forecasting in this environment, clouded by continuing economic uncertainty, is difficult, so much so that, for the first time in recent memory, Honeywell did not issue its turbine helicopter sales forecast at this year’s Helicopter Association International Heli-Expo.
Brazil is currently evaluating the acquisition for more Gripen multi-role fighters to add to the 36 it ordered in 2014. Although defense minister Jose Mucio did not talk about numbers when speaking at the recent Latin American Aerospace and Defence show held in Rio de Janeiro, it is understood that four additional aircraft are to be added to the current batch, with a second batch of 26 or 30 to be ordered subsequently.
The country's defense forces are in the process of receiving aircraft, with the delivery of the first batch due to be completed in 2027. In the meantime, Embraer is leading development of the Gripen F two-seat version, the first example of which is being assembled at the company’s facility at Gavião Peixoto.
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