Europe The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has proposed beefed-up standards and maintenance practices for aircraft flight and data recorders. Among the changes: Cockpit voice recorders (CVR) on large aircraft—having a maximum takeoff weight of at least 27,000 kg—would need recording durations of 15 hr. by January 2019. EASA also proposed that, by 2020, CVRs and flight data recorders have underwater location devices that broadcast for at least 90 days.

Competition among bird-sized unmanned air systems is growing

Although it has been fashionable to declare the death of the regional-jet market, recent trends suggest that not all deaths are created equal.

Legal hurdles remain in latest stab at low-cost services

When presented next month, NASA's fiscal 2015 budget request will be the first to be shaped by a new strategy for aeronautics research. The tough choices made by the agency to align its limited aeronautics funding with that strategy will become clear. Research into ultra-efficient subsonic and low-boom supersonic aircraft will make the cut, as will efforts to increase system safety, efficiency and autonomy, but work in areas such as rotorcraft and all-electric light aircraft are hanging in the balance.

As they reach cruise altitude, the crew of the high-wing Boeing airliner throttle back its twin turbofans to idle. Verifying that battery levels are adequate, they then do something that would be unthinkable in today's aircraft: They shut down the gas turbine core of each engine.

Modification work is in full swing, but will until end of 2015

The drag-reducing benefit of flying in formation has been known for decades—far longer if you are a bird—but making it practical is the challenge. Geese join up in V formations when they migrate, but all are headed in the same direction; finding opportunities for formation flying within military and commercial air-transport networks crisscrossing the globe is harder.