aircraft

If you're looking for new forms of alternative transportation, stop by Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, Calif., where Airship Ventures is making an old mode of transport new again.

This week, CNET reporters hitched a ride on the first zeppelin to take flight over the United States in 70 years. The German-built, helium-filled dirigible will soon offer sightseeing flights from three locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of just three zeppelins operating in the world, the unique airships will begin flying later this month from Mountain View and in early November from other locations, with ticket … Read more

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office is looking for a submersible aircraft design and invites you to come up with a concept.

Performance requirements call for an aircraft that can cover 1,850km by air or 185km by sea, or 22km underwater in eight hours or less. And this is not some miniature pool hopper; DARPA wants it to be able to carry a crew of eight and a 2,000lb payload.

Speculation on design suggests an old-school snorkel to provide air supply for the power plant while your flying fish is in submerged mode, … Read more

After 16 days, the Olympics concluded with 43 world records being broken. However, there's now another record that's no less exciting.

QinetiQ claimed Sunday that its propeller-driven aircraft called Zephyr flew for 83 hours and 37 minutes nonstop, more than doubling the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk in 2001.

The Zephyr is much different from the Global Hawk, which is about the size of a fighter and requires a runway for taking off and landing.

Zephyr, on the other hand, is an ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber aircraft that weighs less than 70 pounds and is … Read more

Forget all that tired Star Wars paraphernalia. If we had our way, we'd design all computer hardware in stealth mode instead.

First we'd start with that Meizo LCD that doubles as a TV, with its B-2 bomber angles. Then we'd add an "Aircraft Mouse" from The Design Town, a unique company described as "a habitat for creative individuals who seek the perfect design that expresses who they really are." We're not sure about all that--we just like jets with blinking lights, like this LED-outfitted mouse seen on GeekAlerts.

We're still in … Read more

Get out bat signal. The Caped Crusader is going to want one of these.

Boeing calls the design of its new flying-wing lookalike, the X-48B, a "blended wing body." That's for obvious reasons: the aircraft's wings blend smoothly into the fuselage, where older flying wings were really just, well, wings.

The experimental X-48B has made a half-dozen flights so far, all at Edwards Air Force Base in California since the middle of July, and is in the shop for a brief stint as researchers do some scheduled maintenance and start poring through the aeronautical data. It'… Read more

There's a lot of room for novel aircraft design between the gargantuan (the Airbus A380) and the flimsy (that balsa wood toy that never flew the way you wanted it to).

One such design that's getting some attention these days--from no less than the likes of NASA--is the "personal aircraft vehicle." The notion here is that small propeller-driven planes could someday become the Camrys and Escorts of the skies, whisking commuters to the office or on short business trips while also undoing the gridlock that defines the automotive life for so many of us working stiffs.… Read more

If airplanes are your large-scale luxury gadget of choice, News.com has a nice big gallery of exciting shots from July's Experimental Aircraft Association show in the skies over Wisconsin.

For a sampling of home-builts, antiques, classics, electrics, war birds, ultralights and rotorcraft, as well as cameos by both NASA and The Beach Boys, you have only to click on the image at left.

Oshkosh... It's not just for overalls anymore.

The grand Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus a380 may usher in an era of more fuel-efficient air travel, but their bird-shaped designs could look downright primitive later in the century.

Dutch aerospace engineers are imagining aircraft that look less like today's big-nosed winged planes, which haven't changed much in shape since the 1950s, and more like flying saucers. So maybe you can rest assured that those UFOs you spotted aren't signs of spying aliens, but instead are just your great-great-great-grandchildren traveling home for the holidays from a future when both saucer planes and time travel exist. The … Read more

The 2007 biennial International Paris Air Show got under way Monday with a flurry of announcements, press conferences and flybys from some of the biggest names in the aviation business. The tarmac at Le Bourget Airport outside the French capital was crowded with aircraft of all sizes.

Much of the early buzz at the show went to the commercial rivalry between Boeing and Airbus, both of which have been heavily promoting two marquee aircraft. For Airbus, it's the A380 superjumbo; it's due to go into service with Singapore Airlines in October.