Airbus
Airbus Military's all-new A400M four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft has taken to the air for the first time. The aircraft’s first test flight in the skies above Seville, Spain, comes after many delays – it was originally scheduled for Q1 2008 – but was successfully completed when the plane landed safely at 14.02, December 11, after a flight lasting three hours and forty-seven minutes. The A400M will increase the airlift capacity and range of the aircraft it was designed to replace - the C-130 Hercules and Transall C-160. Read More
REX - robotic beast of burden hits the market
The military potential of robotics has long been one of the primary driving forces in the funding of research and development in the field. Aerial UAVs transformed armed conflict so dramatically that a new wave of robotic military capabilities are being readied for the battlefield in the hope of providing a similar competitive edge. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) recently began showing a battery-powered robotic beast of burden which can carry up to 200 kilograms, run three days without a recharge, and follow and respond to the voice commands of its master. Though designed for use on the battlefield, REX has myriad commercial applications in agriculture, manufacturing, and beyond. Read More
Aircraft seat-bed design offers a comfortable journey for all travelers
Another stand-out entry in the Create the Future Design Contest is the aircraft seat-bed design entered in the transportation section by Mario Martinez Celis from Mexico City. The concept design allows for 594 seats on the Airbus A380 which normally seats 555 but the real beauty of the configuration is that ALL passengers would be given the comfort of seat-beds with more space than ever before. Read More
Virgin Atlantic and Boeing launched the world's first commercial airline flight on biofuel earlier this year, then Continental Airlines joined the push towards alternative fuels and now Airbus has announced that it will partner with Honeywell, IAE and JetBlue in order to develop a sustainable second-generation biofuel for use in commercial aircraft. Read More
February 5, 2008 The Airbus A380 has become the first commercial aircraft to complete a flight using liquid fuel processed from gas. GTL involves converting natural gas, which emits the least carbon of all the fossil fuels, to a liquid fuel oil, which can be used as a fuel substitute, or mixed with regular fuel. The three-hour flight from the UK to France was the first stage of a test flight program to evaluate the environmental impact of alternative fuels in the airline market. Read More
Hypersonic civil aviation: Sydney to Brussels in four hours
August 30, 2007 Imagine long-distance air-travel that could get you to the other side of the globe in less than a quarter of the time it presently takes? Researchers from Reaction Engines, a company created for design and development of advanced space transport and propulsion systems, are investigating the possibility of hypersonic civil transport in a three year study to examine the feasibility of reducing long-distance flights (e.g. from Brussels to Sydney) to less than 4 hours. Read More
July 18, 2006 Airbus used the backdrop of the Farnborough Air Show to today present a new family of aircraft, the A350 XWB, for Extra Wide Body, which will offer increased range, more speed, enhanced passenger comfort and improved economics and efficiency. The new family will consist of four passenger versions and one freighter. The A350-800 seats 270 passengers in a spacious three-class configuration, the A350-900 can accommodate 314 and the A350-1000 is designed for a capacity of 350. These three versions will have a range of 8500 nm and a cruise speed of Mach 0.85. Entry into service for the A350-900 is foreseen for 2012. Beyond this, the A350-900R will take the range even further as an ultra long-range aircraft. A freighter version, the A350-900F will complete the family. Read More
March 19, 2006 If you wanted to give airline business class customers a feeling akin to the luxury they experience with a luxury automobile, the logical people to work with are the people who design luxury vehicle interiors. Airbus prides itself as having the “widest, tallest and most comfortable cabins of any corporate jet” and when it unveils a mock-up of the cabin for its new A350 twinjet at the Aircraft Interiors Expo 2006 exhibition in Hamburg next month, it will be work done in just such a partnership - with BMW Group Designworks. The cabin features new lighting features and projects ambient images onto the ceiling which, along with a host of other technologies, helps to create the mood required. Read More
