The Big Three carriers' vast expansion plans and their implications

Drag-reduction technology that has been under research for decades is moving toward reality as commercial aircraft developers search for ever-higher fuel efficiency. Aircraft vertical tails are the first target because of the payoff if their size and drag can be reduced, but the techniques being developed could find their way onto other aircraft surfaces.

How Airbus and Boeing are boosting profit margins

It’s not every day you wake up to the news that Lockheed Martin confirmed it has been secretly working on a successor to its famous hypersonic spyplane, the SR-71 Blackbird. That’s what happened on Friday, when Aviation Week exclusively told the world about a propulsion breakthrough that would allow a new aircraft, the SR-72, to fly at six times the speed of sound, twice that of its successor.

Additive manufacturing has captured industry's imagination, but even as the first parts appear inside jet engines, the technology's possibilities are only just being realized.

Since he was appointed CEO of Thales earlier this year, Jean-Bernard Levy has repeatedly proclaimed that there is nothing wrong with the company's business portfolio, because all of its operational units are profitable, if only marginally. Unfortunately, this view is symptomatic of the way most European aerospace and defense (A&D) players fail to understand the value of dynamic business portfolio management.

Integrated propulsion breakthrough key to Skunk Works' hypersonic SR-72 concept

The Center for New American Security (CNAS) recently released a report entitled “Game Changers: Disruptive Technology and U.S. Defense Strategy.” That study considered additive manufacturing (3-D printers), autonomous vehicles, directed energy, cyber capabilities, human performance modification and other emerging technologies that the center believes need to be factored into U.S. security policy and planning.