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SIx years after the merger of Airbus and BAE was shot down by Angela Merkel, the idea is back in the news. Tom Enders, Airbus Chief Executive, has seemingly revived the idea, this time just focused on the merger of Airbus’ and BAE Systems fighter jet programme, after he remarked that it was time to “seriously look at consolidating and coalescing efforts eventually to one”. E...

Airbus’ Zephyr S High-Altitude-Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) has achieved a new endurance flight record without refuelling after staying aloft for 14 days, 22 minutes and 8 seconds. The Zephyr started its maiden flight on July 11 from Arizona. The Zephyr is designed to operate in the stratosphere at an average altitude of 70,00ft for a range of applications such as surveillance an...

Electric flight was all the rage this week at Farnborough. Government Support For Electric Flight First up, the Business and Energy Secretary announced that the aerospace sector will be awarded £343m in funding in order to usher in a new era of cleaner flight. The pot will be split between a £255m tranche for new R&D projects, £68m to support small and medium-sized enterpris...

Boom Supersonic Founder and CEO Blake Scholl gave further details on its plans this week during a speech at the Farnborough Airshow. He shed a lot of light on the company’s plans, technology strategy and put a strong emphasis on the commercial opportunity that Boom is chasing. Updated Launch Plans The company is now targeting 2019 for a test flight of its scaled-down demonst...

Project Loon and Project Wing have graduated from Google X, the internet giant’s “moonshot” division which incubates radical new technologies. The two fledgling companies are now part of parent company Alphabet’s “Other Bets” arm and will now both have the freedom as well as the responsibility to commercialise their technology. Wing is focused on developing autonomous aerial...

Boeing has finally responded to the Airbus-Bombardier CSeries partnership by taking a controlling position in Embraer’s commercial aircraft unit in a deal worth £4.75bn. Structured as a joint venture, Boeing will own 80% of the venture with Embraer holding the remaining 20%. The appeal of the Brazilian company to Boeing has been clear to industry watchers for some time due t...

US commercial aviation is booming, with operating margins in double-digit territory since 2014. But is there room for another airline to come in and take a slice of the pie for itself? One entrepreneur certainly thinks so. And that entrepreneur isn’t just anyone. The chap in question is David Neeleman, Founder of low-cost airlines JetBlue and Azul. He has the stellar pedigre...

BAE Systems has been awarded a £20bn contract to equip the Australian Navy with a new fleet of Type 26 Global Combat frigates as part of the SEA 5000 programme. The Global Combat Ship - Australia is based on Type 26 Frigates from BAE Systems which specialise in anti-submarine combat. Although this is big news for a UK company, the UK workforce is unlikely to directly benefit...

Facebook has formally ended its Aquila solar-powered drone design and manufacture project that aimed to bring internet connectivity to the developing world. The programme was developing a high altitude platform station (HAPS) that could stay in the air for months at a time and beam signals to users on the ground. However, Facebook is still committed to the vision to bring th...

Oxford Space Systems (OSS) has raised £6.7m to continue its mission to capture a sizeable part of the growing UK space industry with its innovative satellite antennas and structures. OSS plans to use the money to open a new HQ at the Harwell Space Cluster near Oxford as well as further develop the company’s technology. The company has now raised a total of £10m. The company’...