aircraft

Eurocopter X4 Will Be the Next Must-Have Heli

Filed under: Wings

We all want one of Eurocopter's experimental Rolls-Royce powered X3s. But while that is several years away from production the company's new X4 model is reportedly going to be available a lot sooner. The X4, a next-generation medium twin billed as a replacement for the AS365 Dauphin / EC155, could be available by the end of the year, priced at several million dollars. Eurocopter CEO Lutz Bertling recently promised the X4 will be "a game changer" featuring "a new way of flying". Insiders speculate this means a five-blade design with fly-by-wire controls and a brand new cockpit with iPad-style interfaces. Compared with the Dauphin, the X4 will have an increased payload and enhanced performance and be safer and more environmentally friendly. We're holding out for the Hermes edition.

Tags: aircraft, Eurocopter, Eurocopter X3, Eurocopter X4, helicopter, Sikorsky X2

Sky Hummer: The AVX Flying SUV

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Wings

The Hummer may be going the way of the dinosaurs but a new, improved version is on the way – and it flies.The AVX Aircraft Company's new airborne SUV, a sort of Hummer with retractable wings, or a helicopter with wheels if you prefer, was originally designed for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The AVX (above) does everything a Hummer can do with the addition of Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capability. The four-person all-terrain vehicle converts from road to flight mode in a mere 60 seconds, has a cruising speed equivalent to a light aircraft and features automated takeoff / landing flight control. With a payload of 1,040 lbs., it has a range of 250 nautical miles on one tank of fuel and can cruise at an altitude of 10,000 ft. fully laden. The AVX can do an impressive 80 mph on the ground and hits 140 mph in the air. We're holding out for the luxury version with a full leather and wood interior.

[via JamesList]

Tags: aircraft, airplane, ATV, AVX, helicopter, Hummer, private jet, SUV

MySky Aircraft Available For Order

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

MySky Aircraft, Inc., developer of the MS-1 second-generation light sport aircraft, has announced that orders are now being accepted for the new airplane. The first deliveries of production models are expected in November, 2010. The all-composite plane has a fighter-style bubble canopy and a side stick control. It has a cruise speed of 120 knots with a range of 636 nautical miles.

The MS-1 Mentor model comes equipped with front panel flight and engine instruments, ELT, nav lights and wing tip strobes, and has a base price of $124,500. The MS-1 Elite is equipped with the MySky Flight Information Center in both front and back panel, back up analog airspeed and altimeter indicators, magnetic compass, Garmin VHF com with intercom, and GTX-327 encoding transponder. The base price of the MS-1 Elite is $132,500. Upgrade options are available, including Porsche-style leather-and-rosewood interior, AmSafe seat belts with airbags, night flight package, and flight automation options. MS-1 customers may secure their positions on a first come, first served basis with a refundable deposit of $3000.

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Tags: aircraft, airplane, plane

EXCLUSIVE: Blue Star Jets President Todd Rome's Ten Essential Luxuries

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Wings, 10 Luxuries

Click above to see Todd Rome's 10 Luxuries

Todd Rome co-founded Blue Star Jets in 2001 (with CEO Ricky Sitomer) in response to the inefficiencies in the private jet marketplace. It is now one of the world's largest private aircraft charter brokers, offering an unparalleled level of personalized service; their motto is "Any Jet, Any Time, Any Place." Blue Star Jets grants clients freedom from the financial constraints of fractional jet ownership; the savings of paying only for trips taken; and the flexibility to choose the best aircraft according to a trip's specific budget requirement. With its ShareAJet Exchange, Blue Star Jets has lowered the barrier of entry for the private aviation industry for commercial fliers.

By creating a network of charter companies, Blue Star Jets now has access to over 4,000 aircraft worldwide, ranging from helicopters to Boeing business jets. Prior to Blue Star Jets, Mr. Rome ran a successful broker-dealer firm on Wall Street. He is also Co-Chair of the Diabetes Research Institute, and has made numerous appearances on CNN, CNBC and FOX, among others. When not traveling or working at his office in New York, Mr. Rome enjoys spending time with his family at home in the Hamptons, where Blue Star Jets was one of the key sponsors of the Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge. In the gallery, Rome reveals his 10 essential luxuries and explains what makes them a must.

Gallery: Blue Star Jets President Todd Rome's 10 Luxuries

Tags: aircraft, Blue Star Jets, BlueStarJets, Hamptons, helicopter, polo, private jet, PrivateJet, ShareAJet, Todd Rome, ToddRome

Aircraft Partnership Assocation Makes Plane Sharing Easier

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

For the big purchases in life sometimes it's easier to share the burden. In the escalating real estate market, many people opted to go in on houses together. Now there is a new service helping potential plane owners defray the high cost of aircraft ownership by partnering up. The Aircraft Partnership Association is a new website designed to make sharing aircraft ownership easier.

The site not only helps people find potential partners but also helps them work out the details such as financing, insurance and legal and tax issues. The Aircraft Partnership Association also has goods and services supplier members who help about the partner members. The site will also help with ooperating the partnership, providing online management services for scheduling flights and maintenance and bookkeeping.

Annual membership dues will be $29 but during the initial building phase they've chopped that down to $9.99.

[via General Aviation News]

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Tags: aircraft, plane, private planes

ICON A5

by Laura Malesich (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets, Wings

Getting your own plane is a pretty fantastic purchase but what if you could have one for only $139,000. The Icon A5 is a two-seater sport plane that is an amphibious, retractable and fold-able aircraft with the ability to be towed on a trailer behind your car! It even comes with a plane-sized parachute to help ease the landing in an emergency situation. Small enough for a pair to fly and compact enough to keep in an oversized driveway, the Icon A5 will be a welcome creation come 2010 when its available.

[via Uncrate]

Gallery: ICON A5

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Tags: aircraft, Icon-A5, sport-airplane, sport-plane

Gobosh Aviation Introduces Luxury Sport Aircraft

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Gobosh Aviation unveiled a new luxury sport aircraft at the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida last month. The new 800XP is an all -composite Light Sport Aircraft which will be manufactured in the Czech Republic. It has a Dynon ERIS-D100 glass cockpit and an airframe parachute system. The top of the line 800XP Elite+ Edition is designed fro the private owner and has leather seats, Garmin 396 with XMWX capabilites, Bose headset jacks and much more. The Elite+ Edition starts at around $130,000.

[via General Aviation News]

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Tags: aircraft, airplane, gobosh, gobosh aviation, light sport aircraft

Cessna Skycatcher Plane

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

The latest light sport aircraft is this small plane, the Skycatcher from Cessna. The Skycatcher has a Garmin glass cockpit, and a Teledyne Continential O-200D engine. The lightweight plane has been selling at an introductory price of $109,500 (for the first 1,000 orders) and has been selling fast, receiving 400 orders within the first two days of the Airventure conference. The plane will cruise at 118 knots (136 miles per hour) with a range of 470 nautical miles. The Skycatcher website features more photos and videos of the new plane. Cessna plans to build 700 planes a year once the assembly line is up to production in 2011. The company plans to certify the SkyCatcher in 2008 with the first customer delivery scheduled for 2009.

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Tags: aircraft, cessna, plane, skycatcher

From Street To Sky On A Budget, The Super Sky Cycle

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Wings

Okay so the Skycar is probably not in your budget but for the price of a car you could own the Super Sky Cycle. Larry Neal's company The Butterfly has gone into production with their first 30 Super Sky Cycle Kits. The cycle is a tricycle-geared gyroplane with a folding rotor. Assemble it yourself and then it is registered for the air as an experimental amateur-built aircraft and on the ground as a homebuilt motorcycle. It is powered by a 100-horsepower Rotax 912 ULS engine and can hit a top speed of 100 MPH and a maximum highway speed of 55 MPH. The Super Sky Cycle kit lists for $37,195 including the engine, and is recommended for pilots under 280 pounds.

[via Aero-News Network]

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Tags: aircraft, butterfly, flight, motorcycle, sport flight, super sky cycle, SuperSkyCycle

Concorde Parts up for Auction

by Sandy Maple (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings, Auctions

Maybe you never got a chance to fly on the Concorde before the last flight in 2003, but soon you will have the opportunity to own a piece of it. Beginning September 28th and continuing through October 1st, 835 lots of Concorde related items will be sold to the highest bidder. Included in the sale is everything from spare parts to pilot's uniforms, with most bids expected to range from $67-$400. If you have a little more to spend and possibly a larger place to house your collection, you can bid on the plane's landing gear, which weighs 1.5 tons and is expected to fetch upwards of $2,700. Don't be surprised if these estimates are low. In 2003, the Concorde's trademark needle nose sold for $634,000 although it was valued at only $13,000.

The proceeds of the auction will finance a planned airline park in the French City of Toulou. The Aeroscopia will open in 2010 and feature the history of Aerospatiale Toulouse, the maker of Concorde.

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Tags: aeroscopia, aircraft, airplane, auction, aviation, concorde, plane, supersonic, toulou

Thorpedo LS To Debut at Sun and Fun

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

IndUS Aviation will be offering a new version of their Thorpedo Light Sport aircraft. The new Thorpedo LP will be released at Sun 'n Fun 2007. The new plane is designed for improved fuel efficiency and a higher cruise speed. The Thorpedo LP will have an aerodynamically advanced engine cowl and a landing gear set-up that IndUS refers to as "cowboy boots." No complete pics of the Thorpedo LP are available yet so we will have to content ourselves with pictures of these Thorp 211s in flight.

IndUS actually has a pretty interesting story. The company was founded in 1994 by Ram Pattisapu, M.D., a laparoscopic surgeon who had a dream to sell aircraft in India, China and other global markets. He believes these emerging economies will become very interested in light aircraft in the future. They have arrangements with a major aircraft manufacturer in India and ship in raw materials for processing and sub assembly fabrication. Then final assembly takes place in their headquarters at the Dallas Executive Airport.

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Tags: aircraft, light sport aircraft, planes, thorpedo

Skyacht Personal Blimp

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

A friend of mine has a fear of blimps, she cowers whenever she sees one floating low through the city. She's going to be miserable if personal blimps like the one shown above ever catch on. A company called Skyacht Aircraft has come up with personal blimps which will eventually be able to be bought for under $200,000.

The Personal Blimp uses hot air rather than helium so it is basically a hot air balloon that can be more easily steered. It can also easily deflated and stored. The prototype, the Airship Alberto, made its first flight on October 27, 2006. Since that first flight in October, the Alberto has completed the FAA's required 10 hours of Phase I flight testing. It may still be another two years before these are ready for public sale and the blimps will require some sort of pilot's license in order to fly, depending on what the FAA decides.

The website also features a strangely hypnotic video of the blimp in flight.

[via Gizmag]

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Tags: aircraft, flight, hot air balloon, personal blimp, PersonalBlimp, skyacht

The New PiperJet

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Piper Aircraft has introduced their new PiperJet, a personal aircraft that will offer a blend of "performance and luxury" than few others can compete with. The single-engine jet holds up to six passengers in a luxurious cabin that is both roomy and comfortable. It will have a cruising speed of 360 knots, a maximum altitude of 35,000 feet and a range of 1,300 nautical miles, so it can do cross country trips with only one stop to refuel. The plane is priced at just $2.2 million.

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Tags: aircraft, jet, personal plane, piper, piperjet, plane

Glasair Aviation Two Weeks to Taxi Program

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

How fast can you go from an airplane kit to a fully functional flying aircraft? We've written about Glasair Aviation's kits before but now they are picking up the pace. A new Glasair Aviation program says you can go from kit to flight in three weeks. Aero News Network has details on the Glasair Aviation "2 Weeks to Taxi" customer assembly program. Recently a customer put together his own Sportsman 2 2 aircraft and flew it in 22 days. According to the article, the customer, Marc Cook worked standard 40-hour weeks to put the plane together. Deliveries for the new kit should start in the 4th quarter of 2006. It's the ultimate learning experiences for those who want to know more about what they are flying.

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Tags: aircraft, glasair, kit aircraft, plane, sportsman 2 2 aircraft, Sportsman2 2Aircraft

U.S. Sport Aviation Expo Begins

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Aero-News Network is at the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida. The expo celebrates light sport aircraft and hosted just about every variation of this type of craft include the Sport Aircraft Works' Parrot and the Air Creation trike. The event is technically the 2005 version of the annual event since it got rescheduled due to Hurricane Wilma. The 2006 event will take place in October. The crowds aren't in full effect yet, the expo runs this weekend which means you still have a chance to check out the planes. Also, if you are at the show and in the market for a Sparrowhawk II you can get the doors for free as a show special (it costs $34,995). We'll be checking back in with Aero-News for pictures of more unusual light sport aircraft as they continue to cover the show.

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Tags: aero-news, air trike, aircraft, airplanes, gyroplane, sparrowhawk, sport aviation expo, sport planes