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Black box recovered from Amazon Air crash site

Searching crash site
NTSB investigators, along with representatives from Boeing and Texas Game Warden, search Trinity Bay for recorders from the cargo jet crash in Texas, using pinger locator equipment. (NTSB Photo)

The National Transportation Safety Board says it has recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the muddy Texas bay where an Atlas Air Boeing 767 cargo jet crashed last weekend.

Three crew members were killed in the Feb. 23 crash into Trinity Bay, near Anahuac, Texas. The plane was part of the Amazon Air package delivery fleet, and was nearly at the end of a scheduled Miami-to-Houston flight when it nose-dived into the bay’s shallow waters.

Investigators have been searching for the cockpit voice recorder as well as the plane’s other “black box,” the flight data recorder. Two bodies have been found amid the widely scattered wreckage, along with partial human remains that may be associated with the third fatality.

The Airline Professionals Association, Teamsters Local 1224, identified the three as Capt. Ricky Blakeley, First Officer Conrad Jules Aska and an aviator from Mesa Airlines, pilot Sean Archuleta.

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Tesla sells $35,000 cars and shifts to online sales

Tesla store
The Tesla store at Bellevue Square in Bellevue, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Tesla is finally following through on its pledge to sell its Model 3 electric cars at the standard price of $35,000, but says it’s shutting down on-the-spot showroom sales to remain “financially sustainable” at the lower price point. Going forward, worldwide sales will shift to online only, the company says.

Many of Tesla’s stores will be shut down over the next few months, the company said on its website. A small number of stores in high-traffic locations will remain open as galleries, showcases and information centers, but would-be buyers will have to go online to close the deal.

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Boeing-Safran joint aerospace venture picks a name

Auxiliary power unit
The tail section of a FedEx 777 Freighter ecoDemonstrator flight-test airplane has been opened to reveal its auxiliary power unit, which contains a 3-D-printed titanium part. (Boeing Photo / Paul McElroy)

The 50-50 joint venture that Boeing and Europe’s Safran aerospace company formed last year to build auxiliary power units for airplanes now has a name: Initium Aerospace.

Auxiliary power units, or APUs, are onboard engines that are used primarily to start an aircraft’s main engines. They also power aircraft systems on the ground when the main engines aren’t running, and can boost onboard power during flight if necessary.

Boeing’s APUs are currently built by Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney, but Safran — which is headquartered in France — is raising its profile in the market. Initium’s rise is also part of Boeing’s drive to have a more vertically integrated supply chain, and boost its services business.

“Initium” ccmes from the Latin word for “beginning” or “start,” which refers to an APU’s function as well as the thrust of the Boeing-Safran initiative.

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Future Amazon packages just might ride the bus

Bus compartments
A schematic shows how storage compartments might fit on a bus. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

Amazon’s inventors have suggested using drone-dispensing trucks, rail cars and airships to deliver packages, but one of the company’s latest patents lays out a more mundane route for future customers: picking up their purchases from public buses.

The patent for a mobile package pickup system was published on Jan. 29, almost five years after inventor Kushal Mukesh Bhatt’s patent application was filed. Ironically, Bhatt now works for Walmart, one of Amazon’s biggest retail competitors.

As described in the patent, the system calls for installing storage compartments on buses or other vehicles, and letting riders with the authorized codes unlock a designated compartment and pick up their item. Customers can specify the time and the place for the pickup when they put in their online order.

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Tesla places future bets of Model Y — and China

Model Y
Tesla has teased the design of its Model Y car, but the big reveal is still ahead. (Tesla Image)

As big as the Model 3 electric car is for the future of Tesla, the sport utility vehicle known as the Model Y could be bigger, according to CEO Elon Musk.

“I would expect that the demand for the Model Y would be … maybe 50 percent higher than Model 3?” Musk said today during a teleconference reviewing the company’s fourth-quarter financial results. “Could be even double.”

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Boeing’s passenger air vehicle makes debut

Passenger air vehicle
Boeing’s passenger air vehicle takes flight at a testing ground in Manassas, Va. (Boeing Photo)

Boeing says it has successfully completed the first test flight of a prototype for its autonomous passenger air vehicle, which could start carrying riders as early as next year.

The test was executed on Jan. 22 at an airport in Manassas, Va., near the headquarters of Aurora Flight Sciences, the Boeing subsidiary that’s been developing the electric-powered, vertical takeoff-and-landing aircraft, also known as an eVTOL craft. Boeing NeXt, the business unit that leads Boeing’s urban air mobility efforts, is in charge of the test program.

The uncrewed flight lasted less than a minute and involved a controlled takeoff, hover and landing. The maneuvers were designed to test the prototype’s autonomous functions and ground control systems. A test dummy was strapped inside the cockpit for the ride.

Boeing said future flights will test forward, wing-borne flight, as well as the transition phase between vertical flight and forward flight. That transition is considered the most challenging mode for high-speed eVTOL aircraft.

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GM Cruise works to get Seattle operation in gear

GM Cruise Bolt
Cruise Automation’s self-driving Chevy Bolt took a scenic tour of Seattle, including the Pike Place Market, over the weekend. (Cruise Automation Photo / Stephen Brashear)

The Seattle “tech talk” sponsored this week by GM’s autonomous-vehicle subsidiary, Cruise Automation, had all the hallmarks of a recruiting event for software engineers, plus an extra twist: the self-driving Chevy Bolt that was parked outside the Flatstick Pub in Pioneer Square.

Sure, there was free beer, free food and free mini-golf — but the Bolt drew a crowd as well. And that level of interest tickled Dan Kan, the former Seattleite who went on to become Cruise’s co-founder and chief operating officer.

“Being able to start to see it coming to your city is pretty exciting,” Kan told GeekWire before Jan. 15’s tech talk and party. “We were just out yesterday, taking some photos, and people wanted to talk to us about it. They wanted to come up and say, ‘Hey, how’s this going to work?’ ”

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Boeing reports record airplane deliveries for 2018

Boeing 737 jets
Boeing’s 737 jets accounted for well more than half of a record-high 806 deliveries during 2018. (Boeing Illustration)

Boeing says it delivered a record-high 806 airplanes in 2018, with single-aisle 737 jets accounting for well more than half of those deliveries.

The record pace comes despite a 737 delivery backup that hit the planemaker’s plant in Renton, Wash., last summer due to problems with suppliers such as Spirit AeroSystems and CFM International. The company said 69 planes were delivered in December.

Last year’s tally bests the previous record of 763 deliveries in 2017, but falls just short of Boeing’s target of 810 to 815 deliveries.

Boeing’s order backlog grew as well. The company said 893 net orders came in, with a list-price value of $143.7 billion. That’s just slightly below 2017’s tally of 912 net orders. Boeing recorded 203 airplane sales in December alone, contributing to what’s now a seven-year backlog.

Wall Street greeted today’s news positively, boosting Boeing’s share price by more than 3 percent in midday trading.

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Boom attracts $100M to build supersonic jet

Boom Supersonic jet
Boom Supersonic is assembling a subscale prototype called XB-1 in preparation for producing its Overture supersonic airliner. (Boom Supersonic Image)

Colorado-based Boom Supersonic says it has closed a $100 million Series B investment round to support the development of a Mach-2.2 commercial airliner called Overture.

The funding includes $56 million in new investment as well as $44 million in previously announced investments. Total funding for Boom now stands at more than $141 million. The round was led by Emerson Collective and includes funding from Y Combinator Continuity, Caffeinated Capital, SV Angel and individual investors, Boom said today.

“This new funding allows us to advance work on Overture, the world’s first economically viable supersonic airliner,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl said in a news release. “Overture fares will be similar to today’s business class — widening horizons for tens of millions of travelers. Ultimately, our goal is to make high-speed flight affordable to all.”

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Could airport drone disruption happen here?

Drone test
A drone flies over a New York test site. (NUAIR Alliance Photo via NASA / Eric Miller)

Hundreds of flights have been canceled and tens of thousands of airline passengers have been stranded because of the buzz of unauthorized drones over London’s Gatwick Airport — demonstrating how disruptive a simple aerial strategy can be.

Military forces have been called up to hunt down the elusive drone operator, and the crisis has prompted calls to tighten up flight restrictions near Britain’s airport. But on that score, U.S. airports appear to be in a better position to guard against drone disruption.

British regulations call for a no-drone zone within 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) of an airport’s perimeter, while the Federal Aviation Administration restricts drone flights in a five-mile radius around airports such as Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

In more sensitive areas, such as the National Capital Region around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, restrictions are in force within a much wider radius — ranging from 15 to 30 miles, depending on the type of activity.

Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper told GeekWire that the airport’s operations team hasn’t had any reports of drone incidents, and that it works in collaboration with the FAA on drone monitoring.

The FAA, meanwhile, says that it works with the Department of Homeland Security, the lead agency in drone security issues.

In October, language written into FAA reauthorization legislation gave Homeland Security and the Justice Department the authority to counter the use of drones for “nefarious purposes.”

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