A bee and a jumbo jet: common sense would tell you that the tiny insect couldn't possibly cause any troubles for the massive airplane, right? Actually, no. Bees can cause trouble. When flying insects get in the way of an airplane's wing during takeoff or landing, it's not just the bugs...

Under the leadership of the German Aerospace Center, a new system that will lead pilots into the digital world of the 21st century has been tested in flight trials. A single device transmits communications with the ground and via satellite, digitally at high speed. Detailed information, such...

Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia are studying ways to prevent the remains of insect impacts from adhering to the wing of an aircraft in flight. The research is serious, and positive results could help NASA's aeronautical innovators achieve their goals for improving...

Ever since the Wright brothers, engineers have been working to develop bigger and better flying machines that maximize lift while minimizing drag. There has always been a need to efficiently carry more people and more cargo. And so the science and engineering of getting large aircraft off the...

The Boeing X-48 Blended Wing Body subscale research aircraft made its 100th flight at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, CA. The unmanned X-48C aircraft was flown on two separate 25-minute flights -- the seventh and eighth flights for the X-48C since it began...

Researchers at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) are testing new technologies it created for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that could give commercial and military maintenance programs earlier warning of problems. Condition-based maintenance, known as CBM, will get safer aircraft...

Propulsion by a novel jet engine is the innovation behind a University of Colorado Boulder-developed aircraft that’s accelerating toward commercialization. Jet engine technology can be small, fuel-efficient, and cost-effective, at least with Assistant Professor Ryan...

Boeing (Everett, WA) has delivered the first 787 Dreamliner to Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA). The 787 Dreamliner is an all-new airplane featuring a host of technologies that benefit both airlines and passengers. It is the first mid-size airplane capable of flying long-range routes, enabling...

Steven Schmidt joined NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in 1994 as a project engineer and manager on programs such as the X-33, X-38, X-43A, F-15 Advanced Control Technology for Integrated Vehicles, and the SR-71. Between January 2002 and August 2004 Schmidt...

I mentioned in my last blog post I will travel to Anaheim in early February to attend several shows, notably the Pacific Design & Manufacturing Show and Medical Design & Manufacturing West. That means once again subjecting myself to the rigors of airport security - whipping out my photo ID, emptying my pockets...

The first Question of the Week for 2010 concerns airline security. The recent foiled attempt by a Nigerian terrorist to set off a bomb aboard a Northwest Airlines flight landing in Detroit has renewed concerns that current X-ray technology is insufficient in detecting concealed weapons and...

Successful performance of BFM (Basic Flight Maneuvers) presents the greatest challenge facing combat pilots. Acquiring and maintaining the required skills for dogfights is a long, complicated and costly process. The solution is a system that provides automatic assessment of a situation and automatic recommendation...

Delay banking has been invented to enhance air-traffic management in a way that would increase the degree of fairness in assigning arrival, departure, and en-route delays and trajectory deviations to aircraft impacted by congestion in the national airspace system. In delay banking, an aircraft operator...

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new technique for identifying and repairing small, potentially dangerous cracks in aircraft wings and other structures made from polymer composites. By infusing a polymer with electrically conductive carbon nanotubes, and then monitoring the structure's electrical...

A new turbulence detection system alerts pilots to patches of rough air as they fly through clouds. The system, designed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and tested by United Airlines on commercial flights, is designed to better protect passengers from injuries caused by turbulence while reducing flight delays...

In a crash, keeping the occupants alive and uninjured is paramount. As a part of the Structural Dynamics Branch in the Research and Technology Directorate at NASA Langley, the Landing and Impact Research Facility (LandIR) tests the safety of aircraft by crashing them. Dr. Karen Jackson is part of the research team.

An improved method of computing the spacing of airplanes en route, and software to implement the method, have been invented. The purpose of the invention is to help air-traffic controllers minimize those deviations of the airplanes from the trajectories preferred by their pilots that are needed to...