Aviation Week reports, “Pratt & Whitney is projecting high-single-digit commercial aftermarket growth in 2026, bolstered by strength in several areas. Upticks in volume within Pratt’s biggest large-engine programs, the PW1000G geared turbofan (GTF) and the IAE V2500, will drive the engine-maker’s MRO business this year.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Tag: aviation industry
Embraer Posts Record $29.7B Backlog, 61 Deliveries in Q2
Aerotime reports, “Brazilian planemaker Embraer announced a record order backlog of US$29.7 billion in the second quarter of 2025, the highest in the company’s history. In its financial results released on July 21, 2025, the manufacturer announced that it has delivered 61 aircraft in Q2 of 2025 across all its business units.”
Full Story (Aerotime)
NASA Chief Says X-59 Will Still Play Key Role in Return to Supersonic Flight
Aviation Week reports, “The X-59 low boom demonstrator remains highly relevant, says NASA’s acting administrator. Although running years behind its original schedule, the NASA aircraft is still expected to play a key role in helping ICAO and the FAA develop a noise certification standard for sonic booms that could clear the way for legal overland civil fight at higher supersonic speeds.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
NASA’s X-59 Supersonic Jet Passes Key ‘Cruise Control’ Test Ahead of First Flight
SPACE reports, “NASA’s new X-59 supersonic jet is a step closer to flight after passing an important ground test in March. Known as “engine speed hold,” the test ensured that the X-59 can maintain a specific speed when it flies for the first time later this year. “Engine speed hold is essentially the aircraft’s version of cruise control,” Paul Dees, NASA’s X-59 deputy propulsion lead at Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, said in a statement. “The pilot engages speed hold at their current speed, then can adjust it incrementally up or down as needed.”
Full Story (SPACE)
Aviation Organizations Favor ATC Enhancements Over Privatization
Aviation International News reports, “Nearly three dozen organizations across the aviation industry sent a letter yesterday to Capitol Hill leaders calling for investments that enhance safety both on the ground and in the air. The groups outlined a National Airspace Safety Initiative, providing steps they collectively believe should remain a high priority for lawmakers, such as ensuring “robust emergency funding for critical air traffic control technology and infrastructure and controller staffing and training.” The letter also stated, “We are aligned on not pursuing privatization of U.S. air traffic control services and believe it would be a distraction from these needed investments.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)
NASA Initiates Engines Tests on Experimental X-59
Flying Magazine reports, “NASA has fired up the engine of its experimental X-59 supersonic aircraft for the first time, marking the launch of testing to ensure the powerplant and systems work together.” The “X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft is part of NASA’s Low Boom Flight Demonstration project aimed at collecting data to help shape regulations for possible future commercial supersonic flight. … The modified F414-GE-100 engine is expected to enable the aircraft to fly Mach 1.4, or around 925 mph, according to NASA.”
Full Story (Flying Magazine
Aviation Industry Coalition Calls for Measures to Prevent Use of Unapproved Plane Parts
CNBC reports, “A report issued by an aviation industry coalition on Wednesday called for new steps to help prevent future unapproved parts from entering the aviation supply chain. The report from the Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition that was created in February called for strengthening vendor accreditation, digitizing documents and improving part traceability. It also proposed adopting best practices for receiving and inspecting parts and scrapping and destroying non-usable material.”
Full Story (CNBC)
USAF Working with Merlin Labs to Explore Autonomous Options for KC-135
Defense Daily reports, “Boston-based Merlin Labs, Inc. said on May 30 that it is using data from flights of a KC-135 at MacDill AFB, Fla., ‘to better understand crew workload drivers and gather data to expand the autonomous capabilities of the Merlin Pilot for military use cases.’”
Full Story (Defense Daily)
After the Concorde, a Long Road Back to Supersonic Travel
An Ars Technica report discusses the possibility of achieving supersonic flight without loud booms, noting that NASA is working on it. “The X-59 is being built to do a series of supersonic test flights over American cities to boom people living there.” Then NASA will collect feedback “from those on the ground and compile it into a data pack for the aviation authorities, the FAA and the International Civil Aviation Administration.” That data is then expected to be “part of a push to lift the ban on supersonic flight over land and replace it with an acceptable noise standard.”
Full Story (Ars Technica)
NASA’s X-59 Moves Past Delays Towards First Flight This Year
Aviation Week reports that despite problems “that delayed the X-59 Low-Boom Flight Demonstration program from its scheduled flight debut in 2021, no obvious obstacles stand in the way of the aircraft flying for the first time in the late spring or early summer.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)