With electric trainer airplanes already in service and the first eVTOL models on the brink of certification, lithium-ion batteries have staked their claim on yet another electrifying industry. Lithium-ion batteries may not offer the kind of energy and power that the aviation industry yearns for, but that hasn’t stopped aircraft developers from pursuing their electric aviation dreams and building battery-powered, emissions-free aircraft. 

For the advanced air mobility industry, batteries available today are sufficient for small aircraft operating short flights, but scaling the technology to larger, longer-range aircraft will require a breakthrough in battery technology. Exactly what that breakthrough might entail remains to be seen, but in the meantime, new-and-improved batteries could be closer than you think—and they may not be that different from the batteries we already use today.

During a whirlwind series of trips in the past few months, Textron Aviation invited me back to fly its flagship Citation Longitude. Luckily, the airline gods made it possible for me to make some last-minute flight changes, and I was able to make it to Wichita to spend some time at the Textron Aviation headquarters.

This would be my third time flying the Longitude, and it wasn’t planned for me to replicate the pilot report I had already done on this capable jet. The opportunity on hand was for me to try out the Longitude’s new head-up display—Garmin’s first HUD.

He spends more than three hours in a helicopter nearly every weekday, flying in some of the world’s busiest airspace, and while his voice is familiar to millions of New York City-area commuters, WCBS 880 radio helicopter traffic reporter Tom Kaminski is also known for his brief role as an eyewitness to one of the darkest events in American history. Not even the passage of two decades has dimmed his recollections of that clear late summer morning.

“The day was uneventful up until that point. We were out later than we normally would have been. We had to check on a collision that turned out to be really nothing. At 8:46 we started to make our way back [to the helicopter base at Linden Airport] and were making our turn south on the Hudson at the George Washington Bridge when we saw a flash and a fireball.”

Has managing all your ERJ landing gear overhauls got you feeling overwhelmed? A third-party provider can assist with the entire process, but is outsourcing right for you? In this resource, C&L Aviation Group explains the benefits of working with a provider for all your ERJ landing gear overhaul management needs. 

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is widely considered to be the solution with the greatest potential to help the aviation industry reach its goals of decarbonization, and the introduction of industry book-and-claim programs is the tool that is going to greatly advance its production and adoption.

While the global supply of SAF this year is expected to triple 2023’s total, reaching 400 million gallons of unblended SAF, it still only accounts for less than half a percent of the amount of jet fuel consumed. That number is expected to grow exponentially as more production facilities come online and new production pathways are approved.

You’ve paid a small fortune to be in the back of that stretch limo. The water you’ve been offered comes from an artisanal spring in France’s Auvergne region and is bottled by monks chanting in Latin, but you’re still the traffic-gridlocked chump trapped like a bug in amber watching a 1992 Ford Taurus edge ahead of you in the crawl to the airport.

That isn’t text from marketing materials produced by one of the start-ups preparing to launch air taxi services using new eVTOL aircraft, but it very well could be. Electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles have been conceived as congestion-busters, promising a guilt-free way to fly short distances while not spewing excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and alienating the masses with the noise from your helicopter. But is that realistic?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded Beta Technologies a $20 million contract to evaluate how electric aircraft could support public health provision. In the first phase of work announced on Wednesday, Beta will install electric charging systems at 22 sites along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico as part of a pilot program to assess how electric aircraft might be a viable alternative to helicopters for emergency medical operations.

Beta’s charging systems can support ground vehicles and multiple electric aircraft types, including the Alia models it is developing for both VTOL and runway-based operations. The new sites will use energy from the grid and expand a U.S. network of chargers already established by the company to enable HHS’s planned Emergency Preparedness Platform.

The NTSB is calling for the FAA to require that Part 135 operations use certified flight dispatchers, expand the load manifest requirements to single-pilot operations, improve data collection, and mandate flight data monitoring programs. These were among a handful of new and reiterated recommendations that the NTSB made as a result of a special investigation it conducted into 116 fatal and 460 nonfatal accidents from 2010 to 2022 involving commuter air carriers, air-tour operators, air ambulance services, and on-demand charters, among others flying under FAR Part 135.

Launching the investigation in 2022 “after a cluster of safety issues emerged” from recent Part 135 accidents, the NTSB said it identified vulnerabilities in several areas. These included unsafe loading conditions, a lack of certificated dispatchers for some operations, and a need for flight data monitoring.

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