The Sukhoi T-4 was a Soviet high-speed Reconnaissance, anti-ship and strategic bomber aircraft that did not proceed beyond the prototype stage. The T-4 had intake ramps similar to the XB-70, was made largely from titanium and stainless steel, and featured a quadruple redundant fly-by-wire control system but also employed a mechanical system as a backup. 5. First Flew in 1972 The first T-...
WestJet Airlines Ltd has started talks with aircraft makers on replacements for its fleet of Boeing 767-300 planes, with delivery of the new planes expected by the end of this decade. The Calgary-based airline is talking with Boeing Co and Airbus Group on options to replace the 767, an extended range aircraft that will serve Europe starting in May, Chief Executive Officer Gregg Saretsky told Re...
The first upgraded Ilyushin Il-76MDM (NATO reporting name: Candid) military and transport aircraft has performed its first flight at the airfield of the Gromov Flight Research Institute near Moscow, a TASS correspondent reports from the scene. After the successful flight, the test pilots from the Ilyushin Aviation Company who operated the aircraft were greeted by Ilyushin CEO Sergei Velmozhkin....
Mitch Snyder, the chief executive of Bell Helicopter, does not imagine the company offering any future conventional clean-sheet helicopter to the US military after completing delivery of the AH-1Z Viper and UH-1Y Venom. Snyder, speaking on the eve of the Heli-Expo convention, is putting his faith in tiltrotor technology and other “future of flight concepts” to address long-term mili...
AN UNUSUAL odour has been blamed for the hasty landing of a plane carrying almost 70 people at Melbourne Airport this morning. The Tigerair A320 aircraft, flight TT511 from Brisbane, made a priority landing just after 10am. The source of the smell, which the crew reported in the cockpit cabin, will now be investigated. Paramedics assessed four people at the scene. Those treated did not...
Infrastructure investors are hot on the trail of airport assets and are willing to pay a premium, even for secondary and regional airports. Emblematic of this quest is the deal reached by a consortium that included Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Borealis Infrastructure to acquire London City Airport, located just east of the city’s Canary Wharf district and favored by business t...
Leonardo DiCaprio used the platform of his Oscar success last night to lecture tens of millions of viewers about global warming, but the actor failed to mention that he routinely uses a CO2 belching private jet to travel between L.A. and New York. After receiving his award for best actor, DiCaprio launched into a rant about man-made climate change. “Climate change is real,” he sa...
For the first time in the history of Russian aviation, a private design bureau has created an aircraft that can outperform its state-designed counterparts. The SR-10 light trainer plane is expected to go into production in 2017. he SR-10 light dual-pilot jet trainer aircraft caused a sensation when it first took to the Russian skies in late December 2015. For the first time in Russian aviation,...
One of the most interesting-looking planes is a hybrid-wing body aircraft with turbofan engines on top of its back end. NASA will reportedly soon request money to build a new line of efficient and environmentally friendly X-planes. NASA will ask for a $3.7 billion budget increase over the next decade. The planes are part of a 10-year plan called the New Aviation Horizons Initiative, rep...
US passenger weighing just 175lbs (12.5 stone) has described his shock at being ejected from an aircraft because it was too heavy to take off. Dan Nykaza said he was forced to leave a flight with Envoy, a regional subsidiary of American Airlines, moments before take-off as the plane exceeded its weight limit, ABC7 reports. "I'm sitting on the plane for 20-30 minutes and the f...
Passengers faced long delays and diverted flights after the runway at Gatwick was closed because of a spillage. No flights were able to land or take off at the West Sussex airport after a plane was believed to have dropped oil on Monday morning. At least 18 incoming flights were diverted to other airports, while outgoing flights were being delayed by up to an hour. An airport spokesm...
On-demand flight company Wheels Up raised over $96 million. Wheels Up is a membership-based private aviation company that last September announced “up to $115 million” in new venture capital funding from T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Investments and New Enterprise Associates. A lot of the related media coverage, however, left out the “up to” part. At the time, Wheels Up had...
An Icelandic airline has unveiled a giant pink plane called ‘GAY’, because of course it has. After London’s rainbow taxi, rainbow bus and rainbow train, things are getting a bit out of hand in the race for the gayest method of transport. Iceland’s WOW Airline is the latest entrant into the gay vehicular contest – and their effort gives TfL a run for their money....
FLY Leasing Limited , a global leader in aircraft leasing, today announced that it has closed a $385 million blind pool aircraft acquisition facility. The facility has a three-year revolving period followed by a three-year term and will bear interest at LIBOR plus 2.00% during the revolving period. The lenders include Commonwealth Bank of Australia New York Branch, MUFG’s bank...
According to the consolidated financial statements reported to Borsa Istanbul, Turkish Airlines reported 1 billion 69 million USD net profit surpassing a billion dolar level for the first time in its history. Profit from main operations stood at 895 million USD with an increase of 32 percent from previous year. Turkish Airlines generated sales revenue of 10 billion 522 million&...
Ben Bridge (44) has been appointed Executive Vice President Global Business while Matthieu Louvot (41) becomes Executive Vice President Customer Support & Services, in a move aimed at consolidating Airbus Helicopters’ leading position while remaining as close as possible to its customers. Both Global Business and Support & Services functions are now sitting at the company’s Exe...
Market demand is the reason Airbus and Boeing have announced plans to raise monthly aircraft deliveries by a combined 42% between now and 2020. Factory automation may be the key reason that aggressive ramp-up is possible. At the centre of that automation ramp-up is a company called Electroimpact, of Mukilteo, Washington. Launched in 1986 with a new design for a handheld, low-voltage electro-mag...
The 2016 edition of the Singapore Airshow was light on aircraft orders, but this allowed the maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) sector sector to steal some of the limelight for a change. The show saw a substantial number of MRO deals by airlines, along with the announcements about new manufacturing facilities, marking a long-running trend in which the Asia-Pacific plays a key role in the a...
easyJet entered into the congested London to Paris market on 26 February, starting a four times weekly A319 operation between London Southend (SEN) and Paris CDG (CDG). The LCC will join London-Paris incumbents offering 184 weekly rotations ‒ Air France (which flies London Heathrow to Paris CDG 46 times weekly), British Airways (Heathrow to CDG 53 times weekly and Paris Orly 27 times weekly) a...
Alia Twal, a first officer who flies for Royal Jordanian Airlines, is a trailblazer in her home country of Jordan. From an early age Twal found her true calling: she knew she would learn to fly and become a pilot. “I was 16 years old when I decided I wanted to be a pilot,” she recalled for Runway Girl Network. “We had a career day in school and I chose to attend...
TAG Aviation today announced the strengthening of its footprint into the Russian market with the appointment of Igor Minakov as TAG’s first ever Russian Service Representative, to be based in Moscow, effective from 1 st March 2016. Mr Minakov brings over thirty years’ charter and operations experience to this pivotal new role and an extensive network of contacts with...
