Largest all-electric aircraft in history will take off in 2025

Swedish startup Heart Aerospace is gearing up for the first experimental flight of Heart X1 early next year, an electric demonstrator of a similar size to its upcoming 30-seater commercial plane. The company aims to launch passenger flights by 2028.

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Rocket plane makes first civil supersonic flight since Concorde

The rebirth of commercial supersonic flight has kind of, sort of come to pass as Dawn Aerospace announces that its 16-ft (4.8-m) Mk-II Aurora rocket-powered aircraft broke the sound barrier with a speed of Mach 1.1 on November 12, 2024.

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Hydrogen-powered, box-winged eVTOL makes first untethered flight

We've been following the development of Australia's AMSL Aero's longe-range, hydrogen-powered Vertiia eVTOL for some time and now the box-winged tilt-rotor aircraft has completed its first free flight after over a year of 50 tethered tests.

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First production-line electric plane from BETA soars in gorgeous video

Small aircraft manufacturer BETA Technologies has rolled the first electric plane off its fully scaled production line in Vermont. You can go along for the ride with this milestone-setting aircraft in a slick new video from the makers.

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Prototype solid-state eVTOL battery pushes 2x pilotless airtime

China's EHang has completed what it calls the world's first solid-state battery test in a pilotless passenger-carrying eVTOL. With nearly 500 Wh/kg of energy density, the solid-state battery contributes to a serious boost in endurance.

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Startup Exosonic goes from supersonic boom to bust

Another example of how the bleeding edge aerospace sector is going through a massive shakeup has surfaced as civilian supersonic startup Exosonic has announced that it is going out of business after being unable to raise needed funding.

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Hypersonic program at risk after Reaction Engines goes belly up

A major player in aerospace innovation has bitten the dust. Reaction Engines, a developer of hypersonic engine technology since 1989, has gone into administration and its closure is having an impact on the hypersonic weapons program of Britain and others.

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eVTOL taxi startup Lilium is out of money and filing for insolvency

Seven years after its first test flight, German electric air taxi manufacturer Lilium has run out of funding, and filed for insolvency for its two subsidiaries. It failed to raise an emergency injection of $54 million to continue its operations.

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Airbus and Toshiba team up to create superconducting aircraft motor

Making a virtue out of necessity, Airbus is joining forces with Toshiba to develop a super-efficient superconducting motor for aircraft that uses the liquid hydrogen that supplies the electricity to cool the propulsion and adjacent systems.

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Boom Supersonic XB-1 hits new speed record in latest test flight

Boom's XB-1 supersonic jet took its fifth test flight last week setting a few new records. The XB-1 is the one-third scale platform that Boom is using for its eventual Overture program aiming to bring back commercial supersonic passenger flight.

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