Wittman Tailwind Crashes, Pilot Killed

Carb heat.  At first blush this one looks like it may not belong here.  The plane was a homebuilt and had already logged over 100 hours.  The pilot wasn't doing any envelope expansion or other fancy stuff.  The reason that I think this one is important is because it highlights that it is often the little things, the mundane, everyday things, that represent the lit fuses.  We lost a NASA X-31, for essentially the same reason, and we have lost flight test planes due to mid-airs, CG control mismanagement, and just plain loss of situational awareness.  This one looks like carb icing.  We've got to watch the worm-races when doing flutter clearance, but we also need to do all the little things that we do everyday just as carefully as always.

http://generalaviationnews.com/2013/12/02/test-flight-ends-in-crash-2/

Embraer Legacy 450 First Flight

The brief piece at the link below is really just letting us know that the flight happened and that they returned safely.  The fly-by-wire system really does open up a lot of future options that are harder to add to a hydro-mechanical system, but we will have to wait a while to see what it all leads to.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Legacy-450-First-Flight221191-1.html

Boeing's Third 787-9 Test Bird Had Maiden Flight in November

Not to be outdone, Boeing is making more news than just union and construction site selection issues.  The link below is to a very short press release that gives a few hints of what is going on in their test program, including the first flight with the GEnx engines.

http://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/13/11/n4093832/boeing-flies-third-787-9-dreamliner

Airbus A350-900 Over 20% Into Test Program

The story at the link below is from several weeks ago, and I am trying mightily to catch up on the latest happenings, but it does give a snapshot of Airbus' plans for their test fleet.  Actual test results remain pretty close-hold, but I will watch for more details and get them to you as soon as life gives me a window.

http://ainonline.com/aviation-news/dubai-air-show/2013-11-17/airbus-builds-a350-900-flight-test-hours

CarterCopter Pushing Out the Speed Envelope?

It isn't clear from the story below exactly when this flight took place, but if a small manufacturer's rotary-wing vehicle that is clearly not yet optimized for high speed can push it out to nearly 175 knots, we may have a paradigm-shift coming on the rotary-wing side of the house.  Let's see where this one goes...

http://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/helicopters/video-500-mph-helicopter

Has DARPA let the "Aurora" Cat out of the Bag?

Okay, the story at the link below smells really odd to me.  The promise is to develop a Mach 10 satellite launch vehicle that can put 5000 pounds into orbit and do the entire development for $154M.  Look for yourself.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/nation/2013/11/13/space-plan-to-cut-satellite-costs/3515119/

Fine.  Let's run some back-of-an-envelope numbers.  I see no way that you're going to get 5000 pounds to orbit without an initial takeoff weight at least ten times that... likely more.  So the plane is going to weigh at least 50,000 pounds.  Back in the dark ages of Falcons, Eagles, and Tomcats, supersonic PRODUCTION airplanes cost about $1000 per pound.  That was 30 years ago, so you've got to at least double that cost nowadays for a production hypersonic launch vehicle.  This puts the production price tag - AFTER development - at no less than $100M per copy.  Initial prototype costs are typically 10 to 100 times the cost of production models, which means that unless there is something they are not telling us, you're going to need to add another zero (or two) to that development cost estimate.

But wait... look again.  The numbers would line up quite well with experience if DARPA were pulling the airplane off the shelf, with no actual development required.

Hmmmm.

BAE Taranis UCAV Makes Maiden Flight

It's interesting that the report was apparently published the day before the information was officially released.  Maybe an "international date line" thing?  No details on the results.

http://www.janes.com/article/28899/taranis-makes-maiden-flight