Aviation Week & Space Technology

First flight under its belt, Sikorsky aims to prove Raider’s breakthrough performance, looks ahead to operational demonstrations and the possibility of making the high-speed helicopter optionally piloted.

Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider high-speed helicopter made an hour-long first flight on May 22 at the company’s development flight center in West Palm Beach, Florida. The rigid coaxial-rotor Raider hovered and maneuvered at low speed, with its pusher propulsor disconnected (but turning due to friction). The flight begins a year-long, roughly 100-flight-hour test program to expand to Raider’s flight envelope to meet Sikorsky’s key targets of 220-kt. cruise speed carrying weapons, hover at 6,000 ft. on a 95F day, and 3g maneuverability at speed.

Who are the top performing airlines of 2015? Based on our study, it may not be the size of the company, but how well the business is run.

Capt. Kimball Stone has been appointed vice president-flight of American Airlines. He succeeds Capt. John Hale, who plans to return to flying. Stone was vice president-Integrated Operations Control and has been followed by Lorne Cass, who was the FAA’s director of airport surface efficiency.

Many players in the aerospace and defense arena are opting to take on more debt ahead of the projected rise in interest rates anticipated this fall.

Airline industry differentiation in the past decade means a carrier that manages to stick to one strategy or particular niche, whatever it is and however large or small it is, has a greater chance of success.

For a decade and a half, TAP Portugal has been on and off the block, but the state-owned airline is now due to be sold to private bidders within weeks.

New Airbus twin has large-format cockpit displays and core processing modules with more integration and functionality.

China appears to be taking steps toward developing stovl aircraft, but lack of a propulsion system likely makes this a long-term proposition.

More power, same weight, less fuel burn: Honeywell’s auxiliary power unit for the A350 sets new performance standards.

Rolls-Royce’s Trent XWB, the only engine available on the A350, sets new standards for high fuel efficiency, low noise and emissions.

DEFENSE France, Germany and Italy have formally agreed to launch studies that could lead to development of a European medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft for delivery in the early to mid-2020s. Airbus Defense & Space in Germany is to lead a two-year, €60 million ($68 million) definition study with France’s Dassault and Italy’s Finmeccanica (page 25).

The bizav sector is confident in upper-market segment growth, but small jets are still suffering.

Aerojet consortium may challenge ULA’s monopoly of national security launch market.

Airbus’s A400M airlifter program has faced some recent setbacks, not least of which is the May 9 crash of a production aircraft on its first flight.

Funding and governance matter, but the largest and least-discussed problem is culture

Climate change charges lodged; Drukair articles lauded; Another CAS solution; call for roomier space exploration crew habitats

Aviation Week chief aircraft evaluation editor Fred George flew left seat in Airbus’s new big twin.

After putting the Airbus A350 through its paces, the ruling is it's a different aircraft than Boeing’s 787, and is a significant advance over the popular A330.

The U.S. Air Force wants to keep its bomber program under wraps. There are at least six reasons why that’s a bad idea.

After nearly 100 years, manned fighters still represent the overwhelming bulk of airpower, but predictions of their irrelevance or obsolescence are still with us.

After years of false starts, a joint European UAV program looks like it may finally progress.

IAF Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel worries that the sale of the Russian S-300 air defense system to Iran could provide a sense of immunity.

The U.S. space agency faces a $150 million bill to human-rate an upper stage for one flight.

A longtime space-engineering company is about to take the plunge into commercial space with a commercial hyperspectral imager for the International Space Station.