Aviation

General Atomics’ Mojave STOL Turns a Korean Tank Trail Into a Runway

By Jackson Chung September 17, 2026

North of Seoul on September 16, a 29-foot uncrewed aircraft left a conventional Army runway, joined air operations over a live-fire range, then settled onto a rough maneuver trail normally reserved for tanks and artillery. Ground-station pilots sent it rolling again. It lifted off in less than 200 meters, resumed the sortie, and flew back to the 513th Aviation Battalion. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Hanwha Aerospace called the sequence the first battlefield short-field operation ever completed by a medium-altitude, long-endurance uncrewed aircraft. The Mojave STOL carried dual weapon rails loaded with four inert AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and wore South Korean markings for the Defense Drone Technology Exhibition at Seungjin Training Field in Pocheon-si. In a real fight, crews on that same trail could have refueled and rearmed it before sending it back up.

55 Pounds of Horizontal Rotors, Texas A&M’s Cyclocopter UAV

By Jackson Chung September 11, 2026

Texas A&M’s Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory has spent years turning a century-old flying idea into something that can actually hold still in the air. Latest result is a 55-pound uncrewed aircraft whose four rotors spin like sideways paddle wheels instead of overhead discs. A recent flight-test video from lab director Moble Benedict shows the machine in controlled hover, using RPM and pitch-phase control on all four cycloidal rotors.

Radia WindRunner’s Next Cargo Will be Fully Assembled Rockets

By Jackson Chung September 10, 2026

Radia just handed its giant cargo plane a second job. WindRunner started as a flying warehouse for 105-meter wind turbine blades that no highway, rail line, or existing freighter can take in one piece. On September 9 the Boulder company said that same 356-foot airframe can carry fully assembled rockets, boosters, and oversized satellites, and it will argue the case next week at the Air and Space Forces Association conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

NES Radar Turns a 1985 Nintendo Into a Live Air Traffic Scope

By Bill Smith September 6, 2026

Levi Maaia’s NES Radar takes an original Nintendo Entertainment System and treats it like a small air traffic display. You load a custom ROM on a flash cartridge, type any airport’s four-letter ICAO code with a controller in port one, press Start, and real aircraft flying near that field appear as moving 8-bit targets on the television. It works for airports worldwide. A quiet local strip shows a few arrivals lining up. A code like KLAX fills the ring in a hurry.

ProjectAir Builds Giant Circle Plane, Proves a Circle Beats a Straight Line

By Bill Smith August 17, 2026

James Whomsley, better known as ProjectAir, has spent nearly a decade turning odd ideas into flying machines. His latest project takes one of the simplest shapes possible and asks whether it might outperform the wings we see every day. He built a giant radio-controlled plane whose main lifting surfaces form complete circles, then put the concept through the same cycle of prototypes, crashes, and rebuilds that defines so much of his work.

Heart X1, the World’s Largest Electric Aircraft, Successfully Completes First Test Flight on $5 of Electricity

By Bill Smith August 13, 2026

The Heart X1 rolled down the runway at Plattsburgh International Airport in upstate New York on August 12, 2026, and climbed into the air on battery power alone. Twenty-seven minutes later the aircraft touched down again after reaching 1,100 feet and delivering more than one megawatt from its electric motors. The entire flight, taxi to landing, used roughly five dollars of electricity.

Archer Aviation Takes Control of Boeing’s Flying Taxi Work and Gains a Ready-Made Defense Business

By Jackson Chung August 10, 2026

Three years to the day after settling a bruising legal fight over trade secrets, Archer Aviation is buying the company that once sued it. On Monday, Archer and Boeing announced definitive agreements under which Archer will acquire Wisk Aero along with two other Boeing subsidiaries, SkyGrid and Insitu. In return, Boeing will receive a substantial equity stake in Archer, warrants for more shares later, a board seat, and continued access to key autonomy technology.

When a 1,139-Horsepower Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric Ran Beneath the World’s Biggest Plane

By Bill Smith July 25, 2026

Mojave Air and Space Port sits in the high desert where the air stays dry and the runways stretch long enough for machines that refuse ordinary limits. On a recent morning there, a prototype Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric rolled into position under the shadow of Stratolaunch’s Roc. Six jet engines sat silent for the moment. The SUV waited between the twin fuselages of an aircraft whose wings span 385 feet.

Gulf Air and Japan Airlines Join the Push for JetZero’s All-Wing Z4

By Jackson Chung July 23, 2026

Airlines from Bahrain and Japan just threw their weight behind a plane that looks nothing like the ones filling today’s skies. At the Farnborough Air Show this week, Gulf Air signed a letter of intent for an undisclosed number of JetZero Z4 aircraft, locking in preferential delivery slots for the early 2030s. Japan Airlines followed with a formal support agreement that puts its operational teams inside the design process from the start.

Thunder Takes the Stage, Anduril’s Autonomous Attack Rotorcraft Built to Fly With Apaches

By Jackson Chung July 20, 2026

Anduril Industries revealed Thunder today at the Farnborough Airshow, a Group 5 autonomous attack rotorcraft developed jointly with Archer Aviation. The platform is designed from the start to fly alongside current and next-generation crewed attack and assault helicopters, multiplying their firepower while keeping human crews farther from the most dangerous parts of the fight.