For two years, Heart Aerospace promoted one hybrid-electric airliner concept while working toward another. The ES-30, with two turboprop engines and two electric motors spread across four nacelles, remained the start-up's public design through August, when the company flew an all-electric demonstrator it called representative of that airplane. But Heart had quietly settled on a different production design long before that flight, CEO Anders Forslund told AIN.

A federal jury in Tampa found on October 2 that eVTOL developer Joby Aviation breached a confidentiality agreement with avionics supplier Aerosonic and misappropriated trade secrets surrounding its air data probes. The jury awarded Aerosonic about $116.9 million, according to the verdict form filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Northrop Grumman has made the first flight of its YFQ-48A Talon Blue autonomous vehicle developed for the collaborative combat aircraft requirements of the U.S. Air Force. The defense group announced the start of test flights from Mojave, California, on October 3, as the next stage of a self-funded program that is part of its wider Project Talon initiative. 

Stratolaunch has acquired an additional aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, to support ongoing missions involving its reusable Talon-A hypersonic flight test vehicle. Alongside the private U.S. aerospace group’s existing carrier assets—the Boeing 747-400 “Spirit of Mojave” and purpose-built “Roc” aircraft—the former airliner will now be converted into an airborne ‘mothership’ to take Talon-A aloft.

Regent Craft has won $5 million in additional funding from the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Lab to demonstrate its all-electric Viceroy seaglider for military missions, bringing the total value of its contract with the lab to $19.25 million. The fourth phase of the program focuses on demonstrating the full-scale Viceroy prototype in operationally relevant conditions and integrating seagliders into military command-and-control systems.

Deutsche Aircraft has opened the final assembly line at Leipzig Halle Airport in northeast Germany, where it will build its D328eco regional airliner. The start-up is working to certify a model that modernizes the 1990s-era Dornier 328 twin turboprop with new Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127XT-S turboprops and a Garmin G5000 Prime flight deck.