Trials have begun on a series of optimized transatlantic flights which will test technologies and ideas destined for use in the next generation of air traffic management systems. Air traffic control organizations in Canada and the U.K. hope these “perfect” flights will offer fuel savings of up to half a ton per transatlantic sector and help reduce delays without increasing workload for pilots and controllers.

Mitsubishi and Embraer’s plans could violate U.S. airline contracts.

Differences in structure and timing between European and U.S. airspace transformation programs are keeping alive the spectre of divergent equipment and training solutions mucking up the transition to next-generation operations. These divergences could result in international airlines having to purchase, install and train pilots for separate avionics systems to be used in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, an outcome industry says will tip the equipage cost-benefit scales in the wrong direction.

Engine architecture drives the debate on new powerplant choices.

While the light-jet market malaise continues to linger, Bombardier believes the market will return to its prior peak levels by 2016 and is maintaining a forecast of 24,000 deliveries valued at $650 billion through 2032. That is nearly the same 20-year outlook the Canada-based company gave a year ago, even though it had predicted the beginnings of a pickup in deliveries in 2013.

Icon Aircraft, the developer of the amphibious light-sport A5 aircraft, is moving forward to ramp up full-scale production with $60 million in new equity funding led by a Chinese investor. The latest investment is the company’s fourth and final round, which Icon says will be enough to demonstrate regulatory compliance, to ramp up production and to begin work on the next aircraft in the model line.

Bell is attempting to reinvent the JetRanger and re-enter a market it left behind five years ago. Juggling development of the Model 525 super medium and the V-280 Valor, the company’s tiltrotor aircraft for the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift requirements, Bell has now added what it calls the Short Light Single (SLS). The helo was unveiled at the Paris air show in a bid to regain market share lost to the Robinson R66 and Eurocopter’s EC120, which filled the void when JetRanger production ended in December 2010.

The long wait for the release of the final aircraft repair station security rule continues as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) extends its review of the new regulation past its 90-day window.