Air Force Bases Need $4.9 Billion for Hurricane Repairs

The US Air Force requires $1.2 billion in FY2019 and $3.7 billion in FY2020/FY2021 of supplemental funding to rebuild Tyndall Air Force Base and recover Offutt Tyndall Air Force Base. Without supplemental funding, the US Air Force would have to cut critical facility and readiness requirements, driving Air Force wide operational risks and negatively impacting …

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Get Rid of the TSA to Save Lives

Most people fear plane crashes, airplane terrorism and nuclear power accidents. However, these fears have resulted in stupid policies that increase deaths. Planes are far safer than cars. The TSA and anti-terrorism pre-flight checks are ineffective at catching terrorism and create delays that cause people to change to driving for short and medium flights. People …

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Boeing Flew an Electric VTOL Passenger Drone Which Would Become Personal Flying Machines

Boeing successfully completed the first test flight of its autonomous passenger air vehicle (PAV) prototype in Manassas, Virginia. Boeing NeXt, which leads the company’s urban air mobility efforts, used Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to design and develop the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and will continue testing to advance the safety and …

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Airbus CTO Predicts a Quantum Computing Era in Aerospace

Airbus chief technology officer (CTO) Grazia Vittadini predicts a quantum era in aerospace. Vittadini made this prediction in a Wall Street Journal article. Quantum computing research is being applied to tough flight physics problems. This is even with the small quantum computer systems that are available today. Nextbigfuture believes the pre-error corrected quantum computers that …

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Two New Airport MegaHubs Will Lower International Airfares in 2019

Instanbul Airport in Turkey and Daxing Airport in Beijing will both open in 2019 to add huge competition for international airport megahubs. The airports are state-supported and will provide airport competition and extra capacity for a combined 160 million passengers. This should lower airfares. More planes and companies will have space and the effect should …

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Solid State Ionic Wind Planes With No Moving Parts

MIT engineers have built and flown the first-ever plane with no moving parts. Instead of propellers or turbines, the light aircraft is powered by an “ionic wind”. Ion wind propulsion systems could be used to fly less noisy drones. Eventually ion propulsion could work with more conventional combustion systems to create more fuel-efficient, hybrid passenger …

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China adds thrust vectoring for better aerial movement on J-10 fighters

China’s J-10 fighter has been upgraded with thrust vectoring controls. This allows for better aerial movement. The J-10 is a copy of the American F-16. The Chinese J-10 was built with Israeli assistance from Israel’s F-16-based Lavi fighter. It is about fifteen years behind the F-16 platform and much further behind the F-35 stealth fighter. …

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China and Russia spending $20 billion to compete with Boeing 787 by mid-2020s

China and Russia had a life-size model of a proposed wide-body long-haul jet at the opening of China’s largest airshow. The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) showed off the model of the CR929’s cockpit and passenger cabin. It was 22 meters long, 6.5 meters tall and 5.9 meters wide, …

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Rapid discharging batteries enable electric passenger planes

Mixing magnetic nanoparticles into battery electrode materials and applying a light magnetic field doubles the discharge rate of batteries. 24M is making prototype batteries using this magnetic approach. Zunum will use the batteries for electric planes. The batteries must be able to deliver a massive amount of power at takeoff. They must have energy density …

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1000 mph Supersonic business jet on track for 2023 first flight

Aerion Supersonic is still on track to its first supersonic flight in 2023. Complete certification is targeted for 2025. Supersonic business jet developer Aerion has launched preliminary design of its 12-seater, Mach 1.4-capable AS2 and revealed ambitions to develop bigger and faster follow-on variants, including potential commercial models. Aerion is partnered with Lockheed Martin, General …

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