Test Flight

Aerospace giant Boeing Co. has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to let it begin test flights on its grounded 787 Dreamliner passenger jet. The new plane has been grounded since Jan. 16 by the FAA because of numerous incidents and high-profile fires involving the onboard lithium-ion batteries. Investigators around the world are looking into the matter. The company disclosed its request for in-flight testing Monday in an email. “Boeing has submitted an application to conduct test flights, and it is currently under evaluation by the FAA,” said Marc Birtel, a company spokesman, who would not comment further.

A Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner passenger jet was found to be on fire after arriving at Boston's Logan International Airport from Tokyo. The fire was discovered at 10:30 EST by a mechanic who saw smoke in the cabin once all passengers from the Japan Air Lines Co. flight were unloaded at the gate 15 minutes earlier, said airport spokesman Richard Walsh. Firefighters used infrared equipment to determine the source of the smoke and found a strong heat signature in the underbelly of the aircraft, Walsh said.

Outside of a science fiction movie, it's a little strange to see a rocket fire up its engines, blast off, and then hover in the air. But that's exactly what Hawthorne rocket maker SpaceX pulled off with its 10-story Grasshopper test vehicle. In a 29-second flight, the rocket burst into the sky, rose 131 feet, hovered and landed safely on the pad using thrust vector and throttle control.  To cushion its fall back to the launchpad, the Grasshopper has steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure.

For the first time, the U.S. Navy has catapulted the bat-winged X-47B drone into flight. The test conducted Thursday wasn't at sea, but rather at a shore-based catapult facility at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. It marks the first of several shore-based catapult-to-flight tests that will be performed before the sleek drone, called the X-47B, is launched from a ship. The X-47B, built by Northrop Grumman Corp., is designed to perform one of aviation's most difficult maneuvers: land on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

High above the Mojave Desert, the military's next-generation fighter jet dropped a 2,000-pound bomb for the first time in its latest test flight. It's a key milestone for the stealthy, supersonic F-35, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., which has been undergoing tests since its first flight in late 2006. The F-35, piloted by Air Force Maj. Eric "Doc" Schultz, jettisoned the smart bomb Wednesday from the belly of the aircraft over the Naval Air Weapons Station test range at China Lake.

MOJAVE -- The test flight appeared to be going well when the 12-foot rocket soared into blue sky. But upon its descent, something went wrong. On Tuesday, Masten Space System's Xaero test rocket exploded during a test flight here at Mojave Air and Space Port. There were no injuries, but the vehicle was lost. The 2-year-old vertical takeoff and landing vehicle launched around 10:30 a.m. on its most ambitious mission to date. It hit 3,280 feet and slowly came down for a landing under rocket power when it began wildly oscillating.

A closely watched test flight of an experimental aircraft designed to travel up to 3,600 mph ended in disappointment when a part failed, causing the unmanned cruiser to plummet into the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force revealed. The X-51A WaveRider was launched in the Point Mugu Naval Air Test Range over the Pacific in a key test Tuesday intended to fine-tune its hypersonic scramjet engine. The aircraft, built and tested in Southern California, was designed to hit Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound, and fly for five minutes.

A closely watched test flight of an experimental aircraft designed to travel up to 3,600 mph ended in disappointment when a part failed, causing it to plummet into the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force revealed. The unmanned X-51A WaveRider was launched over the Pacific Tuesday from above the Point Mugu Naval Air Test Range in a key test to fine-tune its hypersonic scramjet engine. The aircraft was designed to hit mach 6, or six times the speed of sound, and fly for five minutes. But that didn't happen.

A massive experimental drone designed by Boeing Co. engineers to fly for up to four days at a time completed its first test flight above the Mojave Desert at Edwards Air Force Base. The drone, called Phantom Eye, and its hydrogen-fueled propulsion system have the potential to vastly expand the reach of military spy craft. The longest that reconnaissance planes can stay in the air now is about 30 hours. In the test flight, which took place Friday, the Phantom Eye circled above Edwards at about 4,080 feet above Edwards for 28 minutes.

The results are in from last summer's attempt to test new technology that would provide the Pentagon with a lightning-fast vehicle, capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour. In August the Pentagon's research arm, known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, carried out a test flight of an experimental aircraft capable of traveling at 20 times the speed of sound. The arrowhead-shaped unmanned aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere aboard an eight-story Minotaur IV rocket made by Orbital Sciences Corp.