India’s plans to develop a home-grown regional transport aircraft (RTA) appear to have been scrapped, with state owned airframer Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) releasing a new request for information for the manufacture of a 50-80 seat dual-role regional aircraft in India. The RFI follows an announcement last year that plans to develop the RTA in partnership with the Bangalore...
Test flights of Russia’s new all-weather reconnaissance and attack helicopters Kamov Ka-52 Alligator, produced within the framework of the 2016 state defense order have started at the Progress Arsenyev Aviation Company (Progress AAC, a subsidiary of the Russian Helicopters holding). Progress AAC is based in the town of Arsenyev in the Russian Far Eastern Primorsky territory. In accordance wi...
Oman Air is considering buying Airbus Group SE (AIR.FR) A350 long-range planes amid a turnaround effort aimed at ending years of government handouts. The airline may take around 13 A350s from 2020, Chief Executive Paul Gregorowitsch said in an interview Wednesday, with the long-range jets replacing Airbus A330 widebodies currently used by Oman Air on some long-haul routes. The deal would have a...
Bell Helicopter announced that, Petroleum Air Services has been appointed as the first Bell Helicopter Authorized Customer Service Facility in North Africa. “Since 1982, we have been providing both fixed wing and helicopter transportation to the oil and gas and travel industries in Egypt,” said General Yehia Hussein, Chairman and Managing Director Petroleum Air Servi...
Last year's sluggish sales of Falcon business jets was largely due to the slowing economies in emerging countries, Dassault CEO Eric Trappier said yesterday during a press briefing in Paris. There were gross orders for 45 Falcons received last year, and NetJets canceled an order for 20, bringing the net total to 25. The order intake represented €1.6 billion ($1.8 billion...
A Royal Jet BBJ, registered as A6-DRF, on display at Abu Dhabi Air Expo 2016 suffered what appears to be only superficial damage on Wednesday when two light aircraft were blown under it during a severe morning storm that brought the show to a halt for a second day. “Two light carbon-fiber craft were blown [by high winds] under the BBJ. I think they have been destroyed,...
Key business jet industry metrics are pointing to a further weakening of the market globally and suggest business conditions continue to head toward new post-recession lows, according to the latest UBS Business Jet Market Index, released today. UBS created the market index to track changes in market conditions based on surveys measuring customer interest, pricing, 12-month outl...
In 2011, Airbus and Qatar Airways announced to great fanfare a 50-plane order for the new A320neo airliner. Five years later, that deal could be jeopardy. The Pratt & Whitney 1100G geared turbofans engines Qatar selected to power the planes are not up to Qatar's exacting standards, Bloomberg's Andrea Rothman reported. According to Bloomberg, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Bak...
In the spirit of Charles Lindbergh, a French research company hopes to complete the first carbon-free trans-Atlantic flight later this year. The Eraole, an electric biofuel plane developed by Laboratoire Océan Vital, will take flight from New York to Paris in June: The company says the plane will produce zero carbon emissions. If successful, the plane could have lasting impacts in the fi...
As the launch customer of the A320neo, IndiGo has been waiting eagerly to take delivery of the planes that will help it cut fuel costs by 10-15% InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, which runs the IndiGo low-fare airline, said on Twitter that it will take delivery of Asia’s first A320neo aircraft on Thursday from European plane maker Airbus SAS. “IndiGo took delivery of the new A320neo aircr...
In the 1940s, most planes had straight wings. Even the Bell X-1 that broke the sound barrier for the first time had straight wings. But a straight-winged aircraft can run into major stability issues when it gets flying at transonic speeds. In 1941, a Lockheed test pilot named Ralph Virden lost control of his P-38 Lightning in a dive and died in a crash. This prompted an engineer named John Stac...
A passenger delayed a flight by an hour by opening an emergency exit of a Boeing 737 just before take-off. He was on a domestic flight with China Southern Airlines when the incident occurred, the People's Daily Online reports. The plane had to stay at Chengdu Shuangliu airport while the issue was resolved. The flight, bound for Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in north-west Ch...
