The most popular aerobatics show is definitely the Red Bull Air Racing world championship. It is a series of events that is organized mostly over water (usually ports) where small aerobatic planes are timed over a course defined by nylon inflatable cones. The events are very spectacular and they are broadcasted live at Red Bull's website. Sometimes they are too spectacular as you can see in the image below where pilot Matt Hall touched the water (twice!) but managed not to crash.

Space shuttle Atlantis with its six-astronaut crew returned after 12 days in space. This is the last mission for Atlantis and the first of the final space shuttle missions. Discovery will fly for the last time in September (STS-133) and Endeavor in November (STS-134). The STS-132 mission was problem free, Atlantis delivered the Mini Research Module-1, (called "Rassvet" in Russian) and the crew performed several EVAs.

Amphibian aircraft once very popular are nowadays very rare and few companies invest in this sector. One of them is the Japanese ShinMaywa, a firm that deals with various industrial and high-tech applications and aircraft construction. ShinMaywa has a long tradition in amphibious aircraft and the US-2 is its latest product. It is derived from the similarly looking US-1 (for sometime the -2 was called US-1kai - for improved) that first flew in the '70s. It may look similar to older amphibious aircrafts (even the WWII era ones) but the US-2 is a highly advanced aircraft, adapted to its role of maritime patrol, search and rescue and firefighting.

Update - Discovery has landed at Kennedy Space center completing the STS-131 mission. Only 3 Space Shuttle flights remain until the termination of the Space Shuttle Program and the US Human Spaceflight (at least for the next years).

Space Shuttle Discovery of mission STS-131 is scheduled to land this morning (local time) at Kennedy Space Center. The landing is delayed one day due to poor visibility conditions because of the weather and a landing at Edwards AFB was considered. The volcano ash cloud is not in the way of the landing track. Discovery has completed a two week mission to ISS.

SAAB is investigating the design of the next generation fighter that will someday eventually replace the Gripen. The photo above is from a small research program that SAAB is conduction with the University of Linköping. The program entitled Generic Future Fighter Aircraft aims to develop a cost-effective and quick way to design and manufacture a demonstrator concept and also to evaluate the usage of this scaled demonstrator as a development and evaluation tool.

The 787 prototype designated for static tests (ZY997) complete the ultimate load test where the wings are subjected to loads up to 150% of the design limit. The airframe should withstand these loads and the company could choose either to stop there or to continue until destruction. This test (officially called Condition 18b) highlights the flexibility of the composite wing. In normal conditions the wing deflects up to 3m upwards at the wingtips. When subjected to these high loads the wingtips (at 150%) were deflected approximately 7.5-8m, more than the destruction point of the metallic wing of 777.

Update: 18 March - The first vertical landing took place today when pilot Graham Tomlinson landed the BF-01 to a square of only 95sq.ft in the runway in Patuxent River NAS.

17 March - Today the BF-01 prototype of F-35 made its first hover in flight and also its first short take off. This is a major milestone and accomplishment to the program and it paves the way to the most difficult task to be tested, the vertical landing. Read below for more information and videos.

Most people associate aviation in Czech republic with Aero Vodochody but there are other engineering firms like the relatively new Evector which is known for its small sports airplanes and is now making a step to bigger aircraft with the EV-55. The new twin turboprop aircraft is getting ready for the official roll-out in the end of the month and it should make its first flight later this year.

Tigerfish Aviation is about to introduce a groundbreaking innovation for planes operating from water. It is called Retractable Amphibious Pontoon Technology (RAPT) and it consists of two articulated floaters that can be retracted in a streamlined form in the air. The RAPT has many advantages over conventional planes with floaters or even to bespoke designed hydroplanes. It has been tested in the scale model (1:6 Cessna Caravan) in the photo above and performed very well.