The European business aviation industry has been caught in the crosshairs of a burgeoning, vocal, and increasingly influential environmental community that regards the use of private aircraft as a polluting luxury that the planet can ill afford to accommodate.
Of course, business aviation is no stranger to such opprobrium having faced a barrage of bruising assaults over the years from activists, adversarial politicians, and their erstwhile media cheerleaders seeking to negatively—and incorrectly—portray business aircraft as toys for the super-rich and symbols of extravagance and excess.
The Airport Restaurant in Colorado Springs occupies a retired Boeing KC-97 tanker and offers such entrees as Flying Chicken Florentine. It’s just one of the seven notable aviation-themed restaurants on our list.
Boeing delivered the final Boeing 747 ever built to cargo carrier Atlas Air during a ceremony Tuesday afternoon at its assembly plant in Everett, Washington. The delivery of the jumbo jet, a 747-8 Freighter, marked the end of a 53-year production run that saw 1,574 aircraft go to more than 100 customers and log more than 118 million flight hours.
Dubbed the “Queen of the Skies," the 747 revolutionized air travel as the world’s first twin-aisle airplane and enabled more people to fly farther, faster, and for less cost than ever before. Marked by its distinctive hump in the front section of its fuselage, the airplane helped Boeing cement its reputation for engineering excellence and penchant for innovation.
For the past eight years, Garmin has secretly been working on a fascinating new capability, an autoland function that can rescue an airplane with an incapacitated pilot or save a pilot when weather conditions present no other safe option. Autoland should soon receive its first FAA approval, with certification expected shortly in the Piper M600, followed by the Cirrus Vision Jet.
The Garmin Autoland system is part of Garmin’s Autonomi family of automation products, which includes Electronic Stability and Protection and Emergency Descent Mode. The Autoland system is designed to safely fly an airplane from cruising altitude to a suitable runway, then land the airplane, apply brakes, and stop the engine. Autoland can even switch on anti-/deicing systems if necessary.
Two eVTOL aircraft developers plan to make their vehicles available to yacht owners. Both companies—Air and VRCO—maintain that their respective two- and four-seat all-electric models will be able to operate safely from flat surfaces on luxury vessels and provide a convenient alternative for moving to and from land.
Air, which is working on its Air One design, this week announced a partnership with the International SeaKeepers Society, which is an educational organization for members of the yachting community. The Israel-based manufacturer said the society will help it to make the eVTOL aircraft available to yacht owners as one of a group of brand ambassadors.
Airbus and Qatar Airways have reached what they call an amicable and mutually agreeable settlement of their legal dispute over A350 airframe surface degradation and the grounding of 21 aircraft, the European airframer said on Wednesday. The settlement paves the way for Airbus to proceed with deliveries of 50 A321s and resume shipments of 23 A350s to the Qatari flag carrier, an Airbus spokesman confirmed to AIN.
A repair project for Qatar’s grounded A350s has begun, said Airbus, which added that the settlement details will remain confidential. As part of the settlement, neither party admits any liability.
British aerospace engineer Jason Hill became enthralled with helicopters in his youth while watching the television show, Airwolf, the highly fictionalized account of a Bell 222 converted to a supersonic assault weapon. The experience led to a decades-long dream of producing a stylish, modern light-helicopter design he unveiled in 2020, the five-seat Hill HX50. By last November, Hill Helicopters had attracted hundreds of orders and produced its first carbon-fiber, single-piece fuselage. It plans to begin flight testing by the end of 2023.
The effort, largely funded by Hill’s successful engineering firm Dynamiq, has drawn its share of skeptics, but Hill plods on with near-monthly progress reports he broadcasts live on YouTube. The videos are a quirky combination of a slick infomercial, college engineering lecture, and town hall meeting, in which Hill personally fields live questions from the electronic audience. Other videos posted by the company feature interviews with Hill’s wife, brother, and colleagues, all testifying to Hill’s long-standing and complete commitment to the helicopter. Isabella Hill calls her husband’s drive to build the HX50 “an obsession.”
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