In 2025 Czech aircraft manufacturer TL-Ultralight gained UK Type Approval for its tandem Stream light sport microlight aircraft. This accomplishment follows over two years of development in collaboration with the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the British Microlight Aircraft Association (BMAA), and TL’s UK agents, TL-Sting UK Limited.
The United Kingdom is the first country outside the Czech Republic to grant approval for the Stream, following a UK BCAR Section S standard certification.
In 2025 American manufacturer CubCrafters commenced production of the first microlight version of its popular Carbon Cub, named the Carbon Cub UL. The 160hp two-seater is powered by a Rotax 916iS and will be available in the US as a factory-built Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) and as a ‘factory builder assist’ Experimental Amateur Built (EAB) aircraft.
By using carbon-fibre in its construction, CubCrafters has reduced the empty weight to 390kg which, meeting the LSA maximum all-up weight of 600kg, provides a useful load of 210kg. The company stated that the UL is specifically designed to comply with the new Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification (MOSAIC) rules, expected to be introduced by the FAA later this year. It also fits into the UK’s 600kg Light Sport Microlight category.
Engine: Rotax 916iS
Maximum cruise: 113kt
Stall speed: 28kt
Takeoff roll: 15m
Landing roll: 27m
The V-280 Valor first took to the sky in 2017, and logged over 200 hours of flight time before the prototype was grounded in 2021. Bell has claimed that the aircraft is capable of top speeds of up to 280 knots with a range of up to 800 nautical miles, double the top speed and operational range of the Black Hawk. The Valor can also reportedly carry 23% more troops and 25% more cargo than the Black Hawk.
The biggest difference between the Black Hawk and the Valor is, of course, the tiltrotors. While it looks similar to the V-22 Osprey, the Valor works somewhat differently. The engines remain in place in nacelles, streamlined containers, on the wing — it’s the rotors themselves that tilt up and down. They’re also what give the aircraft its high speed, which is more than 100 miles per hour faster than the Black Hawk’s top speed of 222 miles per hour.
With a crew of four, along with up to 14 passengers, the Valor would replace the Black Hawk in its myriad of missions, from carrying supplies to air assault missions to medical evacuation. The more than three years of flight testing, which included Army test pilots, with the Valor prototype demonstrated its flight capabilities, survivability, and sling loading ability, according to Bell.
The Valor has a wider footprint than the Black Hawk, but is 20% shorter, which Bell said gives it greater flexibility in landing.
U.S. Special Operations Command said that the V-280 was changed in development to allow it to carry more weight, with the intention of making it more easily convertible for use by special operations units. The Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment currently uses MH-60M variants of Black Hawks, which require extensive modifications to be mission ready.
Bell’s V-280 Valor, was selected in 2022 as the winner of the Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft competition. The vertical take off and landing craft has two engines and is designed for both assault and transport purposes. The newly designated MV-75 is meant to eventually replace the Army’s H-60 Black Hawk helicopters, including in special operations missions.
The initial contract, for $232 million, is to continue development of the aircraft, but then expands to $1.2 billion and then perhaps as much as $7 billion to begin building the new fleet of Valor aircraft that will begin replacing the Black Hawk in the mid-2030s. The Army operates roughly 2,000 Black Hawk helicopters, which have been in use since the 1970s. The Army previously said it expects to field the MV-75 by 2030. The MV-75 designation is an homage to the year 1775, the birth year of the U.S. Army.
The initial testing by the 101st Airborne Division will be used to shape MV-75 tactics and doctrine.
Bert Volk started life as an engineer making cars in 1910.
A year later the first airplane landed in Brighton on the beach, a Bleriot monoplane. Volk became fascinated with aviation and he thought he would have a go.
In 1911, he started making parts for engines, wings, floats, and fabric bodies that would be fitted into planes, and two years later pleasure flights began being launched.
Bert Volk’s elder brother, Herman, invented a collapsible, portable hanger on the edge of the water from where pleasure flights started.
They were all built in bits and taken down to the seafront next to the Banjo Groyne, put together and launched into the sea.”
There was a ramp down into the water and planes were launched into the sea.
Seaplane pleasure flights began in Brighton in 1913
A year after flights started, the outbreak of World War One meant the hanger was requisitioned by the government and the project ended.
Herman Volk went off to manufacture planes for the war effort.
He also contributed to the development of Shoreham Airport – one of the first aerodromes in England.
After the war he took over the running of Volk’s Electric Railway on the seafront.
Bert went off to South Africa where he spent most of the rest of his life.
The Turbo-Union RB199 is a turbofan jet engine designed and built in the early 1970s by Turbo-Union, a joint venture between Rolls-Royce, MTU and Aeritalia.
The RB199 originated with a requirement, in 1969, to power a new European multirole combat aircraft (MRCA) called the Panavia MRCA. The engine requirements to meet the Panavia MRCA specification were significant advances over current engines in thrust-to-weight ratio, fuel consumption and size. The final selection of the engine for the MRCA was made between a new European collaboration, Turbo Union, with the RB199, and Pratt & Whitney who proposed the JTF16. The Panavia MRCA would later be called the Panavia Tornado.
Advanced engine studies at Bristol Siddeley had already been done to support the BAC/Dassault AFVG and were based on the Pegasus two-spool arrangement. At Rolls-Royce, where the three-shaft RB211 engine was in development, three shafts were considered better. Rolls-Royce took over Bristol Siddeley in 1967 so the configuration for the RB199 was decided, a three-shaft engine, but fundamentally to Bristol’s design and Bristol’s higher technology.
The overall design concept for the international collaborative program, three shafts was decided by Rolls-Royce. The bypass ratio was chosen for long-range, with low fuel consumption, particularly when throttled back. The selected BPR also gave a higher reheat boost than with smaller values used on similar engines. The design of the individual modules was shared between Rolls-Royce, MTU and Fiat according to their existing expertise. Rolls-Royce designed the fan using scaled-down Pegasus knowledge, the combustor, the high pressure (HP) turbine and the reheat. The reheat used cold air combustion techniques, described by Arthur Sotheran and which were derived from their experience with ramjets and plenum chamber burning (PCB) in Pegasus front nozzles. Fiat had built turbines for the Viper so designed the low pressure (LP) turbine as well as the final nozzle. MTU designed the intermediate pressure(IP) and high pressure (HP) compressors, the IP turbine, and the thrust reverser.
A three-spool arrangement reduces the pressure ratio on each compressor so no variable stators were needed. To meet the short afterburner requirement an arrangement known as mix-then-burn, as used in current engines, was not possible because it was too long and heavy. The RB199 used a much shorter arrangement known as mix/burn.
The RB199 first ran on 27 September 1971 at Patchway, UK. It was flight-tested using an Avro Vulcan with the engine installed in a nacelle that was representative of the Tornado aircraft. The Vulcan first flew with the RB199 in 1972.
Service flying with the Royal Air Force, German Navy and German and Italian Air Forces in the European environment showed normal failure mechanisms for turbine blades, thermal fatigue, creep and high cycle fatigue (HCF) so development started on replacing the initial production equiaxed blades with single-crystal ones which last longer at high temperatures.
Sand ingestion tests had been done and passed as part of the qualification for service introduction but operating in desert conditions with the Royal Saudi Air Force produced new problems. Frequent flying in air carrying different sizes of sand particles caused deposits on the HP turbine blades from sand passing through the combustor. In addition, sand carried with the cooling air through the blades blocked the cooling holes. Single crystal blades were being introduced to improve the life of the blades for the European operating conditions and revised cooling hole arrangements were introduced at the same time to reduce the detrimental effect of sand on blade cooling. With incorporation of these blade processing and cooling changes “Desert Storm Tornado aircraft flew some of the most arduous missions of any Allied aircraft with reliability no worse than peacetime and no engines were rejected for HP Turbine blade defects.”
Looking back on the RB199 program in 2002 Chief Engineer for the RB199, Dr. Gordon Lewis, concluded “The final production standard provided satisfactory reliability and performance.
Variants and applications
RB199 Mk 101
Initial variant powered first Tornado IDS deliveries, with a 38.7kN (8700lbf) dry thrust, 66.01kN (14840lbf) with afterburner.
RB199 Mk 103
Powering Tornado IDS strike versions, with a thrust rating of 40.5 kN (dry) 71.2 kN (reheat)
RB199 Mk 104
Powering the Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant, with a thrust rating of 40.5 kN (dry) 73 kN (reheat)
RB 199 Mk104D
Derivative used on the BAe EAP.
RB199 Mk 105
Powering Tornado ECR versions and applicable to IDS, with a thrust rating of 42.5 kN (dry) 74.3 kN (reheat)
RB199-122
A derivative of the Mk104 (originally designated Mk 104E[13]), powering the first two prototypes of the Eurofighter Typhoon (DA1 and DA2) until the initial versions of the Eurojet EJ200 were available.
Specifications (RB199-104)
Type: Turbofan
Length: 3,600 mm (142 in)
Diameter: 720 mm (28.3 in)
Dry weight: 976 kg (2,151 lb)
Compressor: 3-stage LP, 3-stage IP, 6-stage HP
Turbine: Single-crystal HP, single-crystal IP, 2-stage LP
Maximum thrust: 40 kN (9,100 lbf) dry, 73 kN (16,400 lbf) wet
Turbine inlet temperature: ~1,600 K
Thrust-to-weight ratio: 7.6 (with reheat)
Designed by the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, the XF3J-1 was turned over to the Berliner-Joyce Corporation for development and construction. Ordered on 30 June 1932, this experimental single-seat shipboard fighter was completed in January 1934.
Of all-metal construction with a semi-monocoque fuselage and fabric-covered wings, the XF3J-1 was powered by a 625hp Wright XR-1510-26 radial. Armament was two 7.62mm synchronised machine guns, and provision was made for two 50kg bombs beneath the wings.
Although offering a good performance, the XF3J-1 was surpassed by the Grumman XF2F-1, and no further development was undertaken.
Engine: 625hp Wright XR-1510-26 radial
Empty weight: 1233 kg/2718 lb
Wingspan: 8.84 m/29 ft 0 in
Length: 6.98 m/23 ft 11 in
Height: 3.28 m/11 ft 9 in
Wing area: 22.26 sq.m/239.60 sq ft
Max. speed: 336 km/h/209 mph
Range: 1157 km/719 miles
Armament: two 7.62mm synchronised machine guns, two 50kg bombs
If the Indian armed forces assess the need for a dedicated manned counter-drone fighter capability, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL) HTT-40 could be cost-effectively upgraded to fulfil the role within a reasonable timeframe.
On March 7, 2023, the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) signed a contract with HAL to procure 70 HTT-40 basic trainer aircraft. Earlier, in July 2022, HAL had signed a $100 million contract with U.S. engine-maker Honeywell for 88 engines to power the HTT-40 fleet.
The 70 aircraft on order will be delivered over six years from the date of contract signing.
The HTT-40 is a tandem-seat turboprop trainer that is fully aerobatic and offers excellent low-speed handling characteristics. It features an air-conditioned cockpit, modern avionics, hot refueling capability, running changeover, and zero-zero ejection seats.
The HTT-40 procurement aims to address the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) shortage of basic trainer aircraft and includes associated equipment, training aids, and simulators.
HAL first pitched the HTT-40 as an indigenous trainer for the IAF at Aero India 2013, showcasing a mockup of the aircraft.
However, on May 10, 2012, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had already approved the procurement of 75 Pilatus PC-7 MkII aircraft for the IAF, Indian Navy, and Coast Guard. The Pilatus had been selected through global bidding to replace the aging HPT-32 fleet.
Ironically, in response to HAL’s display of the HTT-40 mockup at Aero India 2013, then IAF Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne had remarked, “There is no need for [the HTT-40 trainer]. We have the Pilatus PC-7. It’s a proven aircraft. The HAL project is starting from scratch. Our indications are that the cost will be too high. There is no need for all this.”
The CAP 231 differs from the CAP21/230 by its new wing leading edge fillets where the wing joins the fuselage.
The CAP 231 is stressed to +/- 10g and has a Vne of 250 mph.
The 231 has taken part in the 1990 WAC at Yverden, Switzerland.
This cabin monoplane, possibly a homebuilt job, looks like it was scaled up from a flying model. It is all straight lines and simplicity, but its fixed taildragger undercarriage has a tailwheel, and spats cover the mainwheels, The tall narrow-chord fin and rudder is strut-braced, and the aerofoil-shaped cockpit cover sits atop a squaresection fuselage. The upright four-cylinder inline air-cooled piston engine in the nose drives an adjustable-pitch two bladed metal propeller. Although the aircraft is finished in a two-tone scheme it carries no markings to reveal either maker or registration, apart from an indecipherable emblem in a square on the fuselage side, in line with the wing trailing edge, and another small and even more indistinct logo on the rudder. The flat grassland offers no clues at all as to whereabouts, and it is even difficult to date the picture, which is just as likely to have been taken in the 1930s as the 1950s.
AEROPLANE NOVEMBER 2006
Unidentified Quadruplane
All Aero 