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Say hello to Maxwell, NASA’s latest X-plane

Image: X-57 Maxwell
This artist’s concept of NASA’s X-57 Maxwell aircraft shows the plane’s specially designed wing and 14 electric motors. (Credit: NASA Langley / Advanced Concepts Lab / AMA Inc.)

NASA says it has received its first X-plane designation in a decade, for a research aircraft that has 14 electric motors built into a slimmed-down wing. The X-57 hybrid electric airplane picked up a new nickname as well: Maxwell.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the name and the number today at Aviation 2016, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ annual Aviation and Aeronautics Forum and Exposition. The development highlights the first “A” in the acronym for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“With the return of piloted X-planes to NASA’s research capabilities – which is a key part of our 10-year-long New Aviation Horizons initiative – the general aviation-sized X-57 will take the first step in opening a new era of aviation,” Bolden said in a news release.

The X-plane designation, which applies to experimental airplane built for the government, was assigned by the U.S. Air Force in response to a NASA request. The first X-plane was the X-1 rocket plane, which became the first plane to go supersonic in 1947. The most recent NASA X-plane was the X-48 blended-wing aircraft, which was tested between 2007 and 2012.

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Iranian reports hint at huge Boeing jet deal

Image: Boeing 787
A 787 jet takes shape at Boeing’s plant in Everett, Wash. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle)

Reports from Tehran suggest that Iran’s flag carrier airline has struck a deal to purchase jetliners from the Boeing Co., which would mark a milestone in U.S. commercial relations with the Islamic Republic.

“In coming days, details of the deal with this company will be announced,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Abbas Akhoundi, Iran’s minister of roads and urban development, as saying today.

The Reuters news agency quoted unnamed sources as saying the deal calls for Iran Air to acquire more than 100 Boeing jets, from the company directly and from leasing companies. Iran Air operates under the umbrella of Akhoundi’s ministry.

Such an arrangement would match Iran Air’s provisional agreement to purchase 118 Airbus jets worth as much as $27 billion. Reuters said that the Airbus agreement, announced in January, still requires export licenses from the United States due to the use of significant U.S. technology.

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Solar Impulse plane gets New York photo op

Image: Solar Impulse
The Solar Impulse 2 airplane flies high over the Statue of Liberty. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

The Solar Impulse 2 airplane finished up more than seven weeks of flying across America with an overnight hop to New York City that sets the stage for a climactic Atlantic crossing.

Solar Impulse co-founder and pilot Andre Borschberg took off from Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania at 11:18 p.m. ET (8:18 p.m. PT) Friday. The timing was dictated by the weather as well as the logistics required to get the airplane through the East Coast’s normally crowded airspace during the middle of the night.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Lady Liberty,” Borschberg said after takeoff.

Borschberg required only a couple of hours to travel less than 100 miles from Lehigh Valley to New York, and then did a series of photo ops over New York landmarks.

The plane flew over the Statue of Liberty around 2 a.m. ET Saturday (11 p.m. PT Friday), and the plane landed at 3:59 a.m. ET (12:59 a.m. PT) at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

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Google’s Larry Page puts $100M into flying cars

Image: Zee Aero flying car
A drawing from a patent application shows Zee Aero’s flying car parked alongside other vehicles.

Google co-founder Larry Page is reportedly funding not just one, but two competing teams to turn the decades-old vision of flying cars into reality … to the tune of $100 million.

That’s the top line from Bloomberg Businessweek’s lengthy report about the race to field flying-car concepts. The claim is based on interviews with people familiar with Zee Aero and Kitty Hawk, the two Silicon Valley operations linked to Page. The bottom line is just as intriguing: The flying-car race pits those two ventures against slightly less stealthy companies such as Joby Aviation, Terrafugia, E-volo,AeroMobil and Airbus.

The ultimate Jetsons dream seems to be coming closer to reality. “Over the past five years, there have been these tremendous advances in the underlying technology,” NASA engineer Mark Moore is quoted as saying. “What appears in the next five to 10 years will be incredible.”

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Boeing designs solar plane that could fly forever

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An artist’s concept shows Boeing’s solar-powered plane taking off. (Credit: PatentYogi via YouTube)

Aerospace companies have been trying for years to create a solar-powered plane that can fly at high altitudes for years at a time, and now Boeing has come up with an unorthodox design that just might work.

If it does work, that would smooth the way for an application that Facebook and Google are working on as well: sending up high-flying drones that can loiter over a fixed space on Earth to serve as a link for broadband communication services. It almost goes without saying that the concept could have military applications as well.

Last month, engineers at Boeing Phantom Works in California filed a patent application for an electric-powered plane with solar cells covering its wings, including crazy-looking winglets that stick up from the ends. A video from PatentYogi shows off the design, as well as how it could be put to use to deliver Internet, phone and video – even in remote regions where cable can’t be laid.

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Solar Impulse lands in PA, sets sights on NY

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The Solar Impulse 2 plane comes in for a landing at Lehigh Valley, Penn. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

One day after a close call, the Solar Impulse 2 round-the-world airplane made a 17-hour trip from Ohio to Pennsylvania today in preparation for its star turn in New York.

The gossamer craft floated down to Lehigh Valley International Airport just as night was falling, at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT) with a crowd of well-wishers in attendance. Some of them flew the Swiss flag in honor of pilot Bertrand Piccard, the Swiss psychiatrist-adventurer who co-founded Solar Impulse.

“There is an incredible traffic jam around the airport,” Piccard said from the plane’s solo cockpit just before landing. “It’s really fun. … It’s probably the nicest scenery I’ve had for landing.”

A 17-hour flight time from Dayton International Airport to Lehigh Valley would be classified as a nightmare if Piccard had been piloting a commercial jet. But it’s par for the course for Solar Impulse 2.

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Boeing makes $11 billion 737 MAX sale to Vietjet

An artist’s conception shows a Boeing 737 MAX wearing the livery of Vietjet Air. (Credit: Boeing)
An artist’s conception shows a Boeing 737 MAX wearing the livery of Vietjet Air. (Credit: Boeing)

With President Barack Obama looking on, executives from Boeing and Vietjet Air signed a deal in Hanoi worth $11.3 billion for 100 737 MAX airplanes – the biggest single commercial airplane purchase in Vietnam.

The single-aisle MAX 200s will be delivered over a time frame ranging from 2019 through 2023, boosting Vietjet’s fleet to more than 200 planes. The low-cost carrier put in a series of orders with Airbus for A320 and A321 jets over the past two years.

The order for the next-generation, fuel-efficient 737 MAX jets provided a commercial boost for Obama’s first-ever visit to Vietnam this week. Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang was also on hand for Monday’s signing ceremony.

Shortly afterward, Obama announced that the U.S. embargo on arms exports to Vietnam would be fully lifted, removing the final major barrier that remained between Washington and Hanoi in the wake of the Vietnam War.

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Solar Impulse visits Wright Brothers’ hometown

Solar Impuse landing
Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard holds up a model of the Wright Flyer as the Solar Impulse 2 airplane descends toward its landing in Dayton with its lights on. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

The Swiss-built Solar Impulse 2 airplane continued its fuel-free, round-the-world odyssey today with a nearly 17-hour flight from Oklahoma to Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wright Brothers.

The solar-powered plane took off from Tulsa International Airport before sunrise at 4:23 a.m. CT (2:23 a.m. PT), and landed after dark at Dayton International Airport at 9:56 p.m. ET (6:56 p.m. PT).. In between, Solar Impulse 2 swept over a wide swath of America’s heartland, including Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

After landing, pilot Andre Borschberg was met by two relatives of the Wright Brothers, great-grandnephew Stephen Wright and great-grandniece Amanda Wright Lane. They gave models of the Wright Flyer to Borschberg and Solar Impulse’s other co-founder, Swiss psychiatrist-adventurer Bertrand Piccard.

“It’s a dream to come here, and we made it,” Borschberg told the Wrights.

Piccard noted that Dayton served as the base for Orville and Wilbur Wright’s airplane-building operation more than a century ago. “People told the Wright Brothers, and us, what we wanted to achieve was impossible,” he said. “They were wrong.”

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Boeing opens billion-dollar 777X wing factory

Image: 777X Wing Center opening
VIPs and workers gather for today’s grand opening of the 777X Composite Wing Center in Everett, Wash. The factory’s 120-foot-long autoclave is at right. (Credit: Boeing)

Boeing is showing off the partially automated 777X Composite Wing Center it built at its campus in Everett, Wash. – the result of $1 billion in investment and 14 months of construction work.

Today’s grand opening brought together community leaders, executives and workers at the 1.3 million-square-foot factory, which is big enough to house 25 football fields. It’ll be a while before 777X production begins, however.

Boeing says it has received 320 orders and commitments so far for the wide-body plane, which can accommodate up to 425 passengers in its 777-9 configuration. The first delivery is targeted for 2020.

The 777X’s 114-foot-long wings will be built up from carbon composite material, layer by layer, with the aid of automated fiber placement machines from Electroimpact, based nearby in Mukilteo. The composite pieces will be trimmed and cooked to completion in a 120-foot-long oven known as an autoclave.

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737 MAX jet gets drawn into labor dispute

Image: Southwest 737 MAX
An artist’s conception shows a Southwest Airlines 737 MAX taking to the air. (Credit: Boeing)

Is Boeing’s 737 MAX just a 737 jet, or is it something new? That question figures in a years-long battle between Southwest Airlines and its pilots union.

The fuel-efficient 737 MAX made its maiden test flight in January, and Southwest is due to receive the first plane of that breed in the first half of next year. The airline has put in firm orders for 30 of the MAX 7 variant and 170 of the MAX 8.

The issue is that the yet-to-be-delivered 737 MAX isn’t specifically named in the current labor agreement between the airline and the 8,300-member Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association. The two sides have been negotiating over a new contract for more than four years, and dispute has become increasingly bitter. The pilots are seeking higher pay and an improved retirement package, while Southwest is seeking more flexible work rules and improvements in productivity.

The negotiations are currently in federal mediation.

For months, Southwest pilots have been saying that they won’t fly the 737 MAX when it’s delivered, because it’s not listed among the planes covered by the existing contract. Today the union filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in Dallas to block Southwest from flying the 737 MAX until the plane is officially listed in a new contract.

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