Aircraft Nation

28/07/2026

🇸🇪 recibe la certificación de la para iniciar las pruebas de vuelo de su demostrador X1

Heart Aerospace anunció que la FAA 🇺🇸 le otorgó un Special Airworthiness Certificate en la categoría experimental para su demostrador X1, un paso que autoriza a la compañía a comenzar de inmediato sus pruebas de vuelo. La certificación fue emitida tras una inspección realizada en la base de ensayos de Heart en Plattsburgh International Airport, Nueva York, donde el avión ya estaba en preparación final para su primer vuelo.

El X1 es un demostrador a escala completa del futuro ES-30, un avión regional híbrido-eléctrico de 30 plazas que Heart quiere llevar a certificación comercial. La compañía señaló que el programa de pruebas en tierra incluyó ensayos estructurales, de propulsión, de sistemas y rodajes de baja y alta velocidad, con lo que busca validar que la aeronave está lista para pasar a la fase de vuelo tripulado.

De acuerdo con Heart, el X1 tiene una envergadura de 106 pies, una longitud de fuselaje de 76 pies y un peso de despegue superior a 25,000 libras, lo que lo convertiría en el avión eléctrico más grande en volar hasta ahora. El fabricante lo presenta como una plataforma para validar características de vuelo, demostrar tecnologías clave y generar datos operativos para el desarrollo del ES-30.

La autorización llega después de más de un año de trabajo conjunto entre Heart Aerospace y la FAA. AIN reportó que el demostrador ya estaba siendo preparado para volar en Plattsburgh, mientras la empresa avanzaba con la campaña previa al primer vuelo.

Foto 📸: Heart Aerospace
Redacción:

25/07/2026

Amelia Earhart was born on this day in 1897, in Atchison, Kansas.

The first time she crossed the Atlantic, in 1928, she never touched the controls. She was invited along as the first woman to make the crossing by air, because the thinking at the time was that flying it herself would be too dangerous for a woman. Somebody else did the flying. America gave her a ticker-tape parade anyway.

She did not believe she had earned it. "I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes," she said. Then she added that maybe someday she would try it alone.

It took her 4 years. In May 1932 she lifted a single-engine Lockheed Vega off a field in Newfoundland and turned east into storms and icing. About 15 hours later she put it down in a pasture in Northern Ireland, the first woman to fly the Atlantic alone and only the second person ever to do it.

3 years before that flight she had been one of 99 women pilots who formed an organization named for their own number, the Ninety-Nines. She became its first president.

In July 1937 she was most of the way around the world with her navigator Fred Noonan. The leg from New Guinea to Howland Island meant 2,500 miles of open Pacific to find a flat scrap of sand almost impossible to see from the air. A Coast Guard ship waited there burning smoke to be spotted. The crew could hear her calling. She could not get a bearing from their signal.

Her transmissions grew shorter. She said they must be on top of the ship but could not see it, and that fuel was running low. In her last message she was flying north and south along a line, sweeping back and forth, looking for an island that never appeared.

The search that followed was the largest and most expensive in American history at the time. 16 days, 9 ships, 66 aircraft, an area of ocean the size of Texas. Nothing was ever found. She was 39.

89 years later, people are still looking for her. And the organization she helped build is still flying.

19/06/2026

Supersonic flight over the United States could be making a comeback. On March 24, 2026, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3410, the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act, by voice vote.

The bill directs the FAA to revise its rules within one year to allow civil aircraft to fly faster than Mach 1 over US land without special authorization, on one key condition: no sonic boom can reach the ground. The FAA would also be required to set final noise standards by April 2027, ensuring supersonic jets are no louder than today's subsonic airliners during takeoff and landing.

The ban has been in place since 1973, when the FAA prohibited overland supersonic flight because of the disruptive noise from sonic booms. While the Concorde later flew transatlantic supersonic routes, it was never allowed to go supersonic over US soil. The last scheduled Concorde flight took place on October 24, 2003, between New York JFK and London Heathrow.

The technology has come a long way since then. NASA is currently flight-testing the X-59, an experimental aircraft designed to soften the sonic boom into a quiet "thump," closer to the sound of a car door closing. Boom Supersonic has demonstrated what it calls "Boomless Cruise," using specific flight profiles and atmospheric conditions to bend the sonic boom upward, away from the ground, so it isn't heard below.

The bill now moves to the Senate, where it has a companion push of its own. If it passes and is signed into law, it could open the door to coast-to-coast supersonic flights in as little as three hours

04/06/2026

Goodbye to the iconic AV-8B Harrier II "jump jet" 😭 The Marines have officially retired the legendary aircraft from service, after a Sundown Ceremony and flyover today at MCAS Cherry Point, NC by the BULLDOGS VMA-223, the final operational unit. After over 55 years of service, the Harrier is being replaced by the F-35B ⚡️

07/05/2026

The F-14 Tomcat might fly again, thanks to Congress 😎

A bill called the "Maverick Act" passed the Senate by Unanimous Consent on April 28 and is now headed to the House. If it passes, three F-14D Tomcats would be transferred to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama — and one could be made airworthy again.

It won't be easy. The airframes have been sitting in the desert for 20 years, parts are scarce, and the supply chain is essentially gone. Full airshow operations are unlikely given the Tomcat's notorious costs, but limited flight demos and heritage events? Very possible.

The bill still needs to pass the House — but just the thought of a Tomcat back in the sky is enough. 🫡

27/04/2026

NASA has officially taken delivery of its new Boeing 777-200ER flying laboratory at Langley Research Center in Virginia. The aircraft arrived on April 22, 2026, ahead of schedule.

This is not just any 777. The aircraft used to fly commercial routes for Japan Airlines as JA704J. It rolled off the Boeing production line in 2003 and was put into long-term storage at Victorville, California in May 2020. NASA bought it in December 2022 for less than $30 million.

It will replace NASA's iconic Douglas DC-8, which retired in April 2024 after nearly 40 years of service.

The upgrades are massive. The new 777 can fly for up to 18 hours at a maximum altitude of 43,000 feet. The DC-8 typically flew six to ten hour missions. The 777 can also carry up to 75,000 pounds of scientific instruments, more than double the 30,000 pounds the DC-8 could handle. It can also carry between 50 and 100 onboard researchers.

The aircraft's first major science mission is scheduled for January 2027. It is called NURTURE, and it will study severe winter weather including snow and ice storms across North America, Greenland, Europe, the North Atlantic, and the Arctic Ocean.

After that, the 777 will be used for everything from monitoring polar ice fields and wildfires to atmospheric research and tracking spacecraft re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

A beautiful second life for an aircraft that once carried passengers across the Pacific.

09/04/2026

The final airworthy Boeing 727-100 in the world has officially been retired, bringing an end to one of aviation’s most iconic aircraft variants after 58 years of service.

The aircraft, registered VP-BAP, first entered service in 1967 with Pan Am before later being converted into a private VIP jet.

In December, the jet completed its final flight from Van Nuys, California, to Kingman, Arizona, where it will likely be placed into long-term storage or scrapped.

While a handful of Boeing 727-200 aircraft still remain active in cargo and private operations, the retirement of VP-BAP marks the end of the original short-body 727-100 era.

The aircraft had become famous among aviation enthusiasts as the last surviving example still capable of flying.

08/04/2026

On April 7, 2026, California-based Reliable Robotics announced it had completed a flight test campaign for the Federal Aviation Administration using a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan with no pilot on board. The aircraft was controlled remotely from the ground.

The mission was to prove that large autonomous aircraft can safely detect and avoid other planes in the air, the same way human pilots do.

Flying in and around Hollister Municipal Airport in California, the Caravan completed more than 50 simulated collision scenarios with another aircraft acting as the "intruder." Each time, an onboard system based on the FAA's next-generation collision avoidance technology, called ACAS Xu, helped the remote pilot steer clear.

ACAS Xu is the drone version of ACAS X, the upgrade to the system that has been protecting passenger jets from mid-air collisions for decades. It uses radar, sensors, and data from other aircraft to spot potential conflicts and recommend the best maneuver to avoid them.

The flights wrap up a contract the FAA awarded Reliable Robotics in 2024.

According to Flying Magazine, the data collected is now being shared with the FAA and the industry committees writing the rules that will eventually allow large uncrewed aircraft to fly in regular airspace alongside passenger planes.

The bigger picture is this. Large autonomous cargo aircraft, air taxis, and drones are coming. Before any of them can routinely share the sky with airliners, they need to prove they can see and avoid traffic just as well as a human pilot. Tests like this one are how that future gets built.

03/04/2026

Robinson Helicopter Company (RHC) implementará las capacidades de gestión digital de aeronaves de próxima generación de Crewchief Systems en los futuros helicópteros R66 NxG y R88, junto con todos los R22 y R44 heredados y las aeronaves entregadas bajo el nuevo programa de intercambio de RHC. A...

25/03/2026