The name Lockheed has not been heard in relation to commercial passenger aircraft for some time. Their last passenger aircraft, the L1011 TriStar, ended production in 1984 and the company, now called Lockheed Martin, has since focused on the military (although it does provide many civil transport systems and components). It was interesting, therefore to [...]

At Farnborough, we caught up with Paul Nash, Head of New Energies for Airbus.  In this video, he shares examples of how Airbus is using synthetic fuels today, tells how Airbus is taking a catalyst role in speeding up the commercialisation of biofuels and outlines the issues the industry faces the move towards carbon neutral [...]

I am sitting here after day two of the Farnborough Air Show 2010. The aircraft that has proven to be the talk of the show this year (with good reason) is the Boeing 787. And let’s face it, it looks pretty cool. But the truly revolutionary nature of this aircraft was made very clear when [...]

Did you know that by shifting the load of bags and cargo in the hold of an aircraft can reduce fuel use in the flight by as much as half a percent? Or that one airport has saved 33,000 tonnes of CO2 each year by installing fixed electrical ground power? Or that the Wright Brothers’ [...]

Last night, just down the road from me in Switzerland, aviation history was made when Solar Impulse, the solar-powered aircraft, flew throughout the night, its batteries charged from the sun during a flight yesterday. It was in the air for more than 26 hours and used exactly 0 litres of jet fuel. The pilot, Andre [...]

On Wednesday last week, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, made his maiden official visit to the United Arab Emirates, where he talked about renewable energy and carbon emissions. Chu talked at length about the importance of developing and deploying renewable energy, including algae for biofuels. He emphasised the huge progress that was being made [...]

The Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association, a group of aviation industry experts that have joined to agree on a set of standards for the dismantling and recycling of aircraft, has today awarded Bombardier as the first aircraft manufacturer to have accreditation for its aircraft recycling centre. Previously, recycling has only been done by specialist companies such [...]

At a ceremony today in Toulouse, the regional aircraft manufacturer ATR presented their newest product, the ATR 72-600, the first in what’s going to be the ATR ‘-600 series’. The new aircraft is which has been designed specifically to have the lowest possible fuel consumption and CO2 emissions per passenger.  These regional turboprop aircraft are [...]