Last month, in a military training area in northern Germany, a compact but lethal jet-powered drone took off from a rail launcher at dawn. Airbus calls this unmanned aircraft the Bird of Prey, which is a suitable nickname given its mission of carrying missiles under its wings to destroy enemy objectives. Last month, the Bird of Prey’s primary mission was to locate and destroy a kamikaze drone flying directly at it, which is a very regular occurrence in modern warfare.
Sikorsky has completed flight testing and handed the first UH-60MX Black Hawk over to the US Army this week. The aircraft has landed at Fort Eustis, Virginia, where the Combat Capabilities Development Command will put it through its paces. From here the real testing begins, with the helicopter expected to demonstrate just how much it can handle on its own.
Anyone who has spent eight or more hours wedged into an economy seat over the middle of the Atlantic knows exactly how the second half of that flight feels. The legs start to protest, sleep refuses to come, and the hours stretch out in a way that no amount of in-flight entertainment can fully fix. United Airlines is taking a swing at that problem with the new Relax Row, and it might just be the most welcome change to economy class in years.
Aviation enthusiasts now have direct access to the planes that once transformed the way people traveled across oceans and countries. The LEGO company has just launched its new Icons entry, the Douglas DC-3 Pan Am Airliner (set 11378), and every detail transports builders back to the 1930s, when air travel still held a certain mystique.
Dawn broke over Oakland, and a sleek Joby electric air taxi took off from the international airport runway as if it ruled the sky. Andrea Pingitore piloted N545JX, which lifted straight up and flew westward over the open water with a nice steady rise. Minutes later, she’d reached the far coast and swung north to take the Marin Headlands under her wing, with the entire San Francisco cityscape visible behind her.
Tomasz Patan took off from his own driveway in a Jetson ONE eVTOL, heading straight out to sea. Soon, he was flying low over the cliffs of Pismo Beach, following the coastline and headed directly over the pier, and the view most certainly stole his breath away as he made his way down the shoreline, passing a beach restaurant he’d flown over many times before.
Robinson Helicopter Co. has taken one of its most popular aircraft and done something interesting with it. The R66 Turbinetruck strips out everything a human pilot needs and turns the turbine powered R66 into a fully autonomous cargo carrier built for the kinds of jobs that are too dangerous, too remote, or simply too repetitive to justify putting a person in the cockpit. Robinson is partnering with Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, to make it happen, bringing Sikorsky’s proven MATRIX autonomy system along for the ride.
DARPA and Bell Textron collaborate on an experimental aircraft that takes off and lands vertically, like a helicopter, but can cruise at jet speeds once airborne. This is known as the X-76 under DARPA’s SPRINT program, which stands for Speed and Runway Independent Technologies. It’s part of a long-standing military challenge: fixed-wing aircraft provide maximum speed, but only if you have a runway to land on; helicopters, on the other hand, can take off and land almost anywhere, but they can’t fly as fast. The X-76 seeks to address this.
On March 2, 2026, Hermeus successfully completed their first flight with the Quarterhorse Mk 2.1, lifting off from Spaceport America in New Mexico and flying over the White Sands Missile Range. From a base station, the team of operators maintained a tight eye on how the systems reacted, how well the plane operated under stress, and so on, basically to see if everything functioned as intended.
A new video from Pratt & Whitney has reignited controversy over the Boeing F-47, which is slated to be the 6th Generation fighter that would eventually replace the F-22 Raptor. Halfway through a short animation focusing on engine progress, an animated fighter jet arrives in flight, its two engines burning brightly as it slashes through a picture-perfect blue skies. Observers quickly identified the image as a possible portrayal of the F-47 itself, powered by Pratt & Whitney’s XA-103 engine, which is now under development.