Bloated Project Epitomizes Reckless Spending

NASA's Space Launch System is an American super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle by which NASA—under the auspices of the agency’s Artemis program—intends to return human beings to the surface of Earth’s moon. As of May 2023, the SLS program is north of $6-billion over-budget and more than six-years behind schedule—so states a scathing new audit undertaken by NASA’s Inspector General.

Vx4 Development Continues, With Bumps Along the Way

Vertical Aerospace has pushed its certification timetable back towards the end of 2026 after a confluence of factors began to induce drag on operations. The plan now has been revised to obtain certification in Vertical’s home nation, getting the UK Civil Aviation Authority's signoff on the Vx4. Unlike many of their competitors, Vertical is breaking new ground, with portions of the nascent eVTOL scene being ironed out with regulators as they go along.

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Textron has unveiled the Cessna Citation Ascend, the newest model in Cessna’s proven and popular 560XL series. Made public on the eve of 2023’s European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE), the Citation Ascend—by virtue of its wholly redesigned cockpit, improved performance, and a more luxurious cabin—pleasantly disrupts the midsize business jet market. Representatives of Airbus’s Perlan Mission II announced its pilots and engineers had completed a successful flight test campaign in the Southwestern U.S., thereby clearing the way for a 2023 attempt to set a new aviation world altitude record for manned, level flight. The pressurized Perlan II glider—which, in 2018, set the subsonic world altitude record at over 76,000-feet—was shipped from the U.S. on 01 May and is currently enroute to El Calafate, Argentina. A sa

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Virgin Galactic has successfully completed its Unity 25 space mission, thinking this makes them ready for commercial service after just a few handfuls of flights. Mission specialists Jamila Gilbert, Christopher Huie, and Luke Mays ventured spaceward for purpose of conducting final end-to-end assessments of Virgin Galactic’s Unity spacecraft and overall spaceflight experience. The first delivery of Cessna's passenger-layout SkyCourier was tendered to Western Aircraft, Inc last week, kicking off the industry's next favorite twin-turboprop, light commuter twin - or so Textron hopes. The delivery marks off the first time a passenger SkyCourier has made its way into operator hands, with previous deliveries consisting solely of cargo variants. GAMA released its first-quarter 2023 General Aviation Aircraft Shipment and Billing Report—compared to the same period in 2022&m

Guidance for the Connected Age

The FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) AIR-21-18R3. Titled Risk of Potential Adverse Effects on Radio Altimeters, the document pertains to Radio Altimeters (RA) and the imminent debut of 5G wireless broadband networks across the United States and Canada. Subject SAIB is informational in nature. Compliance with the recommendations set forth therein is prudent but wholly elective.

“Ain’t Your Daddy’s Super Cub”—Don Wade

Co-owned by Don and Ron Wade—the former of Don’s Dream Machines, a storied Alabama Continental and Lycoming engine shop—Patriot Aircraft USA is the proud maker of the Super Patriot, an eminently capable and stylish backcountry STOL airplane patterned, after a fashion, on Piper’s iconic J-3 Cub. Of the company over which he presides, Patriot Aircraft USA president Don Wade states: “Patriot Aircraft stands as a proud symbol of unyielding adventure, freedom, and unwavering American values. With every flight, we embody the audacity to explore the vast unknown, the indomitable spirit of liberty, and the unyielding pursuit of our wildest dreams.

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US Aviation Academy has set forth that it has launched its second Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) training location at San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI)—a public-use airport in southeast-central Texas’s Caldwell County. CAE announced that it is expanding its global network of simulator training centers to Central Europe. The announcement, made at EBACE 2023, set forth that CAE will presently open a new business aviation training center in Vienna, Austria. Operations at the new facility are slated to get underway in the latter half of 2024. The Allied Pilots Association (APA), the labor union by which American Airlines pilots are represented, authorized a strike in the wake of protracted contract talks with the air-carrier. The authorizing of a strike is the first in a long and complex succession of prerequisites that must be met prior to American Airl

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Stratolaunch confirmed that it had successfully completed a separation release test of TA-0, the company’s Talon-A separation test vehicle. The flight was Roc’s 11th and occasioned the second instance in which the company’s teams conducted flight operations within Vandenberg Space Force Base's Western Range. The Historic Aircraft Preservation Society announced it is offering a classic Piper J-3/L-4B Cub as the grand prize of its summer 2023 fund-raising campaign. The aircraft, dubbed Lulu Belle, began life as an Army L-4B and was assigned to North Carolina’s Camp Butner, where she helped train artillery spotters in preparation for the Allied invasion of Europe. The United States Air Force’s fleet of B-2 Spirit strategic stealth bombers will presently return to service following a 163-day safety pause ordered by U.S. Air Force Global Strike Com

Once In a Blue Moon

The American astronauts to venture to the moon’s surface during NASA’s planned 2029 Artemis V mission will do so aboard a lunar-lander designed and built by Blue Origin—the Auburn, Washington-based space technology concern founded by Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander remains under development and it, or an evolution thereof, will likely be the vehicle by which the  Artemis V moonwalkers are conveyed to and from the lunar surface.

First Austrian Operator of the DA42’s Successor

For more than forty-years, Austria’s Riegl Laser Measurement Systems GmbH has been among the world’s foremost developers and producers of terrestrial, industrial, mobile, airborne, bathymetric and UAV-based laser-scanners, rangefinders and distance-meters. For 15 of those years, Riegl has operated Diamond Aircraft’s DA42 GeoStar, a Special Mission Aircraft optimized for aerial measurement and survey. Riegl has announced it was to become the first Austrian operator of the DA42’s successor—Diamond Aircraft’s new DA62 SurveyStar.