Transportation / Aviation

The electric air taxi business—spurred along for years by Uber’s Elevate initiative and also known as flying cars—is flying into a cloudy unknown: The murky pall of the Covid-19 pandemic and its related, brutal economic downturn. Given how plummeting revenues and homebound consumers have gut punched the established airline and …

The Covid-19 pandemic has frozen much of the world’s aviation system, grounding fleets, shredding balance sheets, and stopping production lines as passenger demand craters. But in Ghana, a new fleet of aircraft took flight on Friday in an effort to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. These small drones, …

If it weren’t for the racket from a helicopter landing on the roof, the complex of heavily modified and interconnected cargo containers in a corner of Burlington International Airport would be a great place to hang out. The structure has a sleek wood-lined lounge, two cozy bedrooms, and a view …

US airlines have enacted a range of other measures, stopping onboard sorting of trash for recycling (so flight attendants don’t have to touch used items), switching to disposable cups for business and first-class passengers, and eliminating “water walks” unless flight attendants can hand out individual bottles of water. Delta is …

Though the visions laid out by the developers of new electric vertical-lift aircraft have been fairly mundane so far—air taxis, cargo delivery—it was a matter of time before someone started sexing up those flying car fantasies. How soon before they appear in a Bond film? When will the military get …

Since helicopters appeared some 80 years ago, they’ve used a single high-speed tail rotor to counteract the torque of the main rotor, stabilizing the aircraft in flight. But that rotor is both the key source of noise for helicopters and a big safety risk while on the ground. Now veteran …

The past 10 months have not been good for Boeing for all sorts of reasons—capped off in December by the failure of the company’s Starliner commercial crew vehicle to achieve the right orbit in its uncrewed debut. But the biggest of the company’s problems remains the 737 MAX, grounded since …

So far, development of the electric vertical-lift aircraft that will enable our dreams of future urban air taxis has largely been the purview of small aviation startups. The “bigs,” Boeing and Airbus, have acquired or partnered with smaller firms, while automakers – who bring expertise in mass-production if not flying …

Without power and not immediately aware of the cause, the pilot executed an emergency descent over the East River and a survivable landing, the NTSB found. But one of the skid-mounted emergency floats that the pilot activated failed to properly inflate, causing the helicopter to pitch in its direction and …

When the US Air Force launched the F-16 Fighting Falcon in 1979, it had something no other military jet did: a computer. Four, actually. Their electrical signals commanded the aircraft instead of gears and pulleys, ushering aerial combat into the digital era. Now, after fighting in the Gulf and Iraq …