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Last night I saw something I had never encountered before: the launch of what I'm told were probably six large drones. They really made my mouth open with astonishment. They went up very fast then changed heading and rose into the clouds. Two minutes later they were joined on the same course by some fast movers which I could hear overhead but could not see due to high cloud. Bearing in mind that "Loose lips sink ships" (which WWII-era warning not coincidentally we began to use again after 9/11/2001), I'm not sure how much to say here. But it's natural...

unresponsive aircraft over atlantic, USAF in pursuit

FAA says too risky to fly over Syria. Banned US carriers from flying.

The US has confirmed that one of its reconnaissance aircraft violated Swedish airspace on July 18th, according to a media report. US authorities told the CNN news channel that the plane was conducting reconnaissance missions in international airspace when it was observed by Russian radar. Russia is reported to have scrambled aircraft to chase the US plane away. The US crew elected to exit the area by the fastest route possible, which meant passing through Swedish airspace. The flight passed over Gotland, an island off the east coast of Sweden, on July 18th in the late afternoon. A classified document...

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Crocodile might be responsible for plane crash in the Congo: UK investigators • Only one person survived the crash — as did the toothy reptile, though it was killed with machetes by rescuers sifting through the plane's wreckage. A plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo that left 18 people dead may have been caused by a crocodile. The animal is thought to have climbed out of a hold midflight and spooked the crew and passengers. They all panicked and ran towards the cockpit, and the forward shift in weight may have caused the plane to plummet to the...

The idea of a flying car might seem like something out of a science fiction novel, but it may soon become a reality. All it'll take is about $30 million in funding and some patience. Terrafugia, a Woburn manufacturer of flying cars has been working on its vehicles for almost eight years. The MIT-born company has been working on two kinds of cars: the Transition, which is scheduled to be released in mid-2016 and can fly at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour at up to 10,000 feet in the air; and the TF-X, a semi-autonomous plug-in hybrid...

The Department of Defense awarded a contract on Wednesday to a Connecticut company that will build a fleet of helicopters to replace the Marine One fleet that ferries U.S. presidents short distances. The contract, given to Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, will cost an initial $1,244,677,064 'for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the Presidential Helicopter Replacement program.' For that price the U.S. Navy will get six test aircraft and all the necessary research & development. The Pentagon made a similar attempt to replace the aging fleet of Sikorsky choppers, spending $3.2 billion on a landing pad to nowhere. Adding in...

Virtually every country on Earth will be able to build or acquire drones capable of firing missiles within the next ten years. Armed aerial drones will be used for targeted killings, terrorism and the government suppression of civil unrest. What’s worse, say experts, it’s too late for the United States to do anything about it. After the past decade’s explosive growth, it may seem that the U.S. is the only country with missile-carrying drones. In fact, the U.S. is losing interest in further developing armed drone technology. The military plans to spend $2.4 billion on unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs,...

On Wednesday at about 2 p.m., according to sources, a U-2 spy plane, the same type of aircraft that flew high-altitude spy missions over Russia 50 years ago, passed through the airspace monitored by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, Calif. The L.A. Center handles landings and departures at the region’s major airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), San Diego and Las Vegas. The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners and other aircraft from colliding with each other. The U-2 was flying at 60,000 feet, but the computers were attempting to keep...

Additive manufacturing startup MarkForged aims to make it happen and is already marketing systems. Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the hottest areas in parts fabrication. Interest is high, research dollars are being spent and company stocks are attracting investor attention. Why? First, because AM has moved beyond its initial role as a prototyping tool to a process that can build finished parts. AM technologies — stereolithography, fused deposition modeling (FDM), laser sintering (LS), material extrusion, direct metal deposition and more (see "The rise of rapid manufacturing," under “Editor's Picks,” at top right) — were able from their beginnings to...

DJI Phantom Vision Video drone presentation at Reaganite Republican...

A retired Marine with nearly two decades of aviation experience has stepped forward with a compelling theory about a mysterious plane that was spotted flying over Texas last month. On March 10, photographers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took pictures of three puzzling aircraft flying over Amarillo, and posted them online in hopes of identifying the planes. Retired-Marine James Vineyard has submitted one of the more interesting explanations, telling the Houston Chronicle he believes they are SR-72 Blackbirds - a spy plane that can cross the U.S. in less than an hour, unmanned.

first time. Aviation Week & Space Technology journalist Bill Sweetman has posted photos taken March 10 by two veteran sky watchers, Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett. In his blog post of March 28, Sweetman writes that he and two Aviation Week editors agree that the photos depict "something real." In other words, these pictures aren't easily explained away by reports of known military flights or the work of someone who got carried away with Photoshop. So what can aviation experts say about the object in the photos? "The photos tell us more about what the mysterious stranger isn't than what...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is sending military aircraft and more special operations forces to Uganda to assist in the search for fugitive African warlord Joseph Kony. A senior U.S. military official confirmed Monday that the U.S. is sending at least four CV-22 Osprey aircraft about about 150 more Air Force special operations members and airmen to assist local forces in their long-running battle against Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA. The official confirmed the plans, first reported by The Washington Post, on condition of anonymity without authorization to discuss them on the record.

An administrative judge on the National Transportation Safety Board has ruled that the commercial use of small drones is in fact legal, despite six years of Federal Aviation Administration statements to the contrary. Today Judge Patrick Geraghty dismissed a $10,000 fine levied by the FAA against Raphael Pirker, a Swiss drone operator who used a camera drone to film on the University of Virginia campus. "At the time of respondent's model aircraft operation ... there was no enforceable FAA rule or FAR Regulation application to model aircraft or for classifying model aircraft as an UAS," the judge writes. The ruling...

UK armed forces cuts will limit the country's ability to be a major player on the world stage, ex-US defence secretary Robert Gates has warned. The UK plans to cut 30,000 armed forces personnel by 2020, leaving 147,000. ...On the UK's military cuts, Mr Gates told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "With the fairly substantial reductions in defence spending in Great Britain, what we're finding is that it won't have full spectrum capabilities and the ability to be a full partner as they have been in the past." The spectrum refers to the ability of a country's military to fight...

Over the last century of military aviation, several fighters have earned the nickname “flying coffin.” Military aviation inherently pushes up against the limits of technology and human endurance, particularly where fighter and pursuit aviation is concerned. Flying a fighter is remarkably dangerous, even when no one is trying to shoot you down. Engineering a capable fighter plane is also a struggle. Relatively small changes in engine, armament, and airframe design can transform a clunker into an elite fighting machine; many of the best fighters in history were initially viewed askance by their pilots. But elite status rarely lasts for long,...

Virgin Galactic space travel is aiming to revolutionize commercial air travel at its best, with the launching of the first ever space tourism flight next year, which took nine long years in the making. Although the space travel will be available to those who can afford the $250,000 ticket, the space travel company wants to bring this to the masses; it also aims to provide an ultimate passenger experience that no other air company has ever offered before. With the first ever commercial space travel flight on its way, the giant company aims to "push long-haul air travel above the...