The new Hampshire Air Festival has confirmed the appearance of a rare MiG-17F in the festival’s opening year flying display. Taking place at Thruxton Aerodrome on 12–13 September 2026, Hampshire Air Festival is a new two-day aviation weekend created to celebrate “The Age of Flight” through flying...
Air New Zealand (ANZ) have unveiled their new economy class ‘Skynest’ mini dormitories, featuring six bunks that will be available to book on flights from 18 May 2026. Each Skynest bunk (“pod”) provides a quiet, private space with a full-length mattress, bedding, ambient lighting, ventilation and charging...
The Hispano-Suiza 18.Sb is a rather quirky but powerful 18-cylinder aero-engine that kinda got lost in history! It was designed originally as the Hispano-Suiza 18R to compete in the 1929 Schneider Trophy for seaplanes. It was ordered by the French Air Ministry who needed a 1200 horsepower...
One of the earliest eVTOL developers, Autoflight, has revealed Matrix, the world’s first 5-ton class electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Matrix successfully completed a public full transition flight demonstration this week at the company’s low-altitude flight test facility centre in Kunshan,Jiangsu Province. During the demonstration...
Designed in 1943 by Austrian aeronautical engineer, Raoul Hafner, for the British Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE), the Hafner Rotabuggy was a standard Willey’s Jeep converted into an autogyro*. What is an autogyro? Well, like a helicopter it has rotor blades, but unlike a helicopter they are...
A Chinese company’s combination multi-rotor, 2-seat eVTOL aircraft and state-of-the-art transporter vehicle, is already taking orders, especially in the Middle East where it has recently completed its first global public manned flight. In the UK, hardly anyone has heard of XPENG but it is one of China’s...
The Caldwell Collection at Mustang Field, will be opening to the public in October at the El Reno Regional Airport just west of Oklahoma City. The museum will have approximately two dozen historic aircraft on display from the pioneering years of aviation in the 1920s & 30s....
This is the fuselage, or ‘gondola’, of the rather extraordinary French WW1 Voisin X bomber and gunship. The Voisin X was a two-seat pusher biplane produced either as a night bomber or a gunship armed with a 37 mm (1½”) Hotchkiss cannon and a defensive 7.7mm machine...
The first ever electric flight to land at London Gatwick airport, did so yesterday (9 July) as part of the VINCI Airports Network Elektro Tour. The Elektro Tour is taking place over 17 days with a Pipistrel Velis Electro* light aircraft flying between nine VINCI airports in...
Skyports Infrastructure held a preview last week of its now complete vertiport at Bicester Motion in Oxfordshire. This is one of the UK’s first testing grounds and hubs for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flights. Vertiports are a key component of the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM)...
A Texas-based start-up, Venus Aerospace, is developing a next-generation rocket engine that could power hypersonic* aircraft. This includes passenger aircraft flying from conventional runways. They aim to reach speeds between four to six times the speed of sound. At Mach 4, passengers could leave London and arrive...
Vertical Aerospace, last week, reached a landmark in the development of their VX4 eVTOL, by making the first-ever piloted wingborne flight of a winged eVTOL in European open airspace. Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft developers around the world are edging nearer and nearer to fully...
Archer Aviation has been selected as the Official Air Taxi Provider for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Paralympic Games, and Team USA . This mirrors the plans of Volocopter at last year’s Olympics in Paris, which in the end failed to come about. Similarly, Archer’s Midnight eVTOL...
An interesting article appeared in the Southern Daily Echo regional newspaper yesterday, about a Britten-Norman Trislander joining the collection at the Solent Sky museum in Southampton Iconic Trislander at Solent Sky Museum in Southampton What struck me was some of the slightly mean-minded comments about the Trislander,...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
COPYRIGHT © MECHTRAVELLER 2016-2026, including all images unless indicated otherwise.
