Aviation Buzzword

Air Race Rivals Fly over Chiba Before Season Finale

The top three pilots in the 2019 Red Bull Air Race World Championship flew their raceplanes over Japan’s Tokyo Bay on Thursday, just 24 hours before Free Practice starts for the sport’s first-ever season finale in Asia.

Martin Šonka, Matt Hall and Japan’s home favorite Yoshihide Muroya are currently first, second and third in the overall standings, and one of them will almost certainly be crowned…

NASA Flies A Large Drone Solo In Public Airspace

NASA has flown a large, remotely piloted aircraft equipped with detect-and-avoid technologies through the national airspace system for the first time without a safety chase plane following it.

NASA says Tuesday’s flight over California moves the U.S. closer to normalizing unmanned aircraft operations in airspace used by commercial and private pilots.

The test used NASA’s Ikhana, a non-military…

While many families, friends and football fans gather to watch Super Bowl LII, members of the U.S. Air Force Heritage Flight is scheduled to visit Minnesota to represent the Air Force during the event. The Heritage Flight will perform a flyover, consisting of two A-10C Thunderbolt IIs, one F-16 Fighting Falcon, and a P-51 Mustang, over U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis during the opening…

U.S. Shoots Down Ballistic Missile During Defense Test Flight

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the Japan Ministry of Defense (MoD), and U.S. Navy sailors aboard USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) successfully conducted a flight test Feb. 3 (Hawaii Standard Time), resulting in the first intercept of a ballistic missile target using the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA off the west coast of…

Famed aerobatic and air race pilot Kirby Chambliss is so excited about the upcoming Red Bull Air Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that he flipped at the chance to compete against IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi. This newest stunt rivals Kirby’s antics after he landed on the Strip in Las Vegas before a race last year. Both Chambliss and Rossi have seen their share of victory and Rossi no…

Watch an AV-8B Harrier with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 223 taxi and launch from the deck of USS Bataan (LHD-5) during Amphibious Squadron 8- 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit Integration Training at sea Sept. 18, 2016. Marines and sailors assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, combined with their Amphibious Squadron 8 counterparts for a two-week PHIBRON-MEU Integration Training exercise…

As with any motorsport the risk of bodily harm is an accepted factor when competing in a high stakes race. This race pilot walked away with only minor injuries during a failed start during the final round of the Formula 1 class at the renowned Reno Air Races. You may recognize the pilot as Thom Richardson, the owner and pilot of one of the most ludacris racing planes of all time, Precious Metal.…

The United States 5th Bomb Wing B-52 and their crews recently performed a mass takeoff during Prairie Vigilance exercise at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Prairie Vigilance is an annual exercise designed to test the wing’s ability to conduct conventional and nuclear-capable bomber operations. “Prairie Vigilance 16-1 is an operational readiness exercise that validates the 5th Bomb Wing’s…

What started as a humble grass strip in the first part of the 20th century has now evolved into a massive hub of transportation connecting all of Europe. Watch this beautiful rendering visualize the evolution ofAmsterdam Airport Schiphol over its one hundred year history. The international airport located in Netherlands opened exactly 100 years ago on September 16, 1916 as a military base in…

Airbus Seeks Patent For Strange Hybrid Vertical Flight Airplane

Sure, we’ve seen Airbus throw some shitty ideas up against the wall to see if anything sticks. Like this ridiculous stacked passenger cabin design or this silly multi stage supersonic transport. Now they’ve upped the ante with this weird gas-electric powered aircraft that can also land and takeoff vertically. While this particular…

FAA Expands Drone Detection Pathfinder Initiative

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expanding the part of its Pathfinder Program that focuses on detecting and identifying unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) flying too close to airports. Today the FAA signed Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRDAs) with Gryphon Sensors, Liteye Systems Inc. and Sensofusion. The FAA will evaluate procedures and technologies designed to…