Destinus has flown its Jungfrau technology demonstrator using new afterburner technology that employs gaseous hydrogen in combination with a conventional turbofan engine. The European start-up expects to bring an autonomous cargo aircraft to market first, followed by passenger-carrying airliners that could reduce travel time between Europe and Australia to just four hours at hypersonic speeds of more than Mach 5.

Piasecki Aircraft Corporation will use the Sikorsky Heliplex facility in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, as a research and development hub for its planned PA-890 hydrogen-powered helicopter as well as new uncrewed aerial systems. The acquisition is expected to create 400 jobs at a site that Lockheed Martin closed in 2022.

Lyte Aviation and the Advanced Air Mobility Institute believe they can transform daily commutes from Washington state's Bainbridge Island to Seattle and the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, replacing ferries with high-capacity, hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft like the in-development SkyBus LA-44.

Cargo drone start-up Dronamics says it has successfully completed the first flight of its flagship aircraft, the Black Swan. The remotely piloted cargo freighter took off from Balchik Airfield in northeast Bulgaria and flew for 10 minutes and 30 seconds, reaching an altitude of 2,000 feet. 

Natilus's Kona autonomous cargo aircraft is a blended-wing-body design, which the company says is well suited to storing hydrogen fuel to maximize payload and range. It will use the ZA600 hydrogen-electric propulsion system being developed by ZeroAvia.

Merlin has deployed a pair of Cessna Caravan aircraft to continue testing of its autonomous flight technology at its new facility in New Zealand. The company says this process will include joint cargo delivery operations with local company Freightways.

Bookings are now open for the first scheduled electric aircraft flights in Scandinavia, plus Volocopter lines up the software platform that will handle maintenance for its eVTOL aircraft fleet, South Korean start-ups Plana and Moviation launch plans for advanced air mobility operations, Airbus supports command and control communications trials for eVTOL aircraft, and Phenix flies its Half Pint utility drone.

As it works on plans for a nine-passenger eSTOL blown-wing aircraft, Electra.aero has posted a short video teasing followers with a glimpse of what it describes as a technology demonstrator. The video shows what appears to be a subscale model of the larger hybrid-electric design, but the Virginia-based company is giving very little away for now. 

This week, the U.S. start-up announced the appointment of former Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and CEO James Albaugh to its board of advisors, along with the former Airbus America CEO and FAA Administrator Allan McArtor, and aircraft finance expert Kristen Bartok Touw.

Electra.aero's planned nine-passenger eSTOL aircraft is expected to be able to operate from landing strips as short as 300 feet. The company's blown-wing design and hybrid-electric propulsion system will be key factors in achieving this breakthrough performance for regional air services. At its base in Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia, the company is using a technology demonstrator and a truck to conduct ground testing key systems in preparation for anticipated test flights later this year.