By Garth Calitz The South African Air Force’s (SAAF) top man will take centre stage at AAD 2026, where Lieutenant General Carl Moatshe will deliver the keynote address on the final day of the conference at Air Force Base Waterkloof. From 16 to 18 September, Africa’s defence chiefs, policymakers, industry executives and assorted people selling solutions to problems that governments have not yet found the money to solve will gather at Waterkloof for the AAD 2026 Conference. The

By Garth Calitz In less than a week, the skies over Pretoria will once again become considerably busier as aircraft, defence systems, aerospace companies and thousands of aviation enthusiasts converge on Air Force Base Waterkloof for Africa Aerospace and Defence 2026. The 13th edition of AAD runs from 16 to 20 September, with three days dedicated to the trade exhibition before the gates open to the general public for the two-day air show on 19 and 20 September. For five days,

By Garth Calitz There are few aircraft that announce their arrival quite like the Airbus A380. It doesn't so much land at an airport as occupy it. Two decks, four engines, a wingspan that makes taxiway planners reach for the antacids and enough seats to transport the entire population of a "platteland" town in one go. When Airbus launched the A380, it wasn't merely building a new airliner. It was making a rather confident prediction about the future of commercial aviation. An

An aircraft flew without relying on GPS navigation signals, instead using quantum sensing technology to measure its movement and maintain an estimate of its position. It may sound like something from a particularly ambitious science-fiction script, but this was very much a real flight test conducted by the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Honeywell Aerospace. Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what wasn't happening during those four hours. There was

By Garth Calitz The rise of electric aircraft is forcing the aviation industry to rethink one of its oldest assumptions: that extinguishing the visible fire means the emergency is under control. The aviation industry is rapidly moving towards electric propulsion. From battery-powered trainers and light aircraft to hybrid-electric regional aircraft and eVTOLs, high-energy batteries are moving from the passenger cabin into the very heart of aircraft propulsion. That transition

Electric aviation has spent the past two decades promising to transform the way aircraft are powered, and the 20th Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium demonstrated just how much that conversation has changed. What began largely as a gathering of engineers and enthusiasts discussing the possibilities of electric propulsion has evolved into a serious industry forum examining certification, commercial operations, infrastructure, energy storage, airspace integration and the econom

NASA has handed the next generation of aviation researchers a rather ambitious shopping list: make aircraft faster, quieter, safer and easier to certify. Four university teams have now been selected to tackle some of those challenges under NASA’s University Leadership Initiative, with around $30 million in funding supporting their work over the coming years. The research ranges from propulsion systems intended to push aircraft beyond Mach 4 to artificial intelligence for airc

India’s AMCA programme has entered a significantly more serious phase during 2026. What was once largely a long-term design exercise is now becoming an industrial programme, with the Indian Ministry of Defence inviting bids for the development and manufacture of five flying prototypes and a structural test specimen. The development programme carries an approved investment envelope of approximately ₹15,000 crore, making AMCA one of India’s most ambitious indigenous aerospace p

Honda Aircraft Company is celebrating two decades since its formal establishment, marking 20 years of innovation, aircraft manufacturing and business aviation development from its headquarters at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina. The anniversary represents a significant milestone for a company that has taken Honda's engineering philosophy from the automotive world into one of aviation's most demanding sectors. From the distinctive HondaJet to

By Garth Calitz The Republic XF-84H was an exceptional aviation experiment: a turboprop fighter featuring a supersonic propeller, producing an astounding level of noise and earning a reputation that has endured long after the aircraft vanished from the skies. There are aircraft that are remembered because they were successful. Others are remembered because they changed aviation. And then there are aircraft remembered simply because engineers were brave enough, or perhaps opti