Air New Zealand’s striking new all black A320 aircraft will touch down at Auckland airport for the first time this afternoon, marking the start of a revolution in the airline’s domestic jet service.

The small satellite, with a big mission, is appropriately named “Firefly.” Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the pint-sized satellite will study the most powerful natural particle accelerator on Earth — lightning.

There are many videos on the internet that you can clearly see are ‘fakes’ but this video from AvWeb.com really made me sit up and think what a lucky guy 22 year old Dino Moline was.

Wile trolling though the abundant supply of aviation videos on YouTube I came across this one. It’s a time laps of a 747 getting a new paint job.

It’s at nearly gross weight before the pilot steps in and can only fly for 15 minutes, but that’s not the point. Sikorsky Innovations sees the Firefly as a testbed for the technologies that may make for a real electric helicopter.

Canada’s student pilots prove their mettle in the CT-156 Harvard II. This agile turboprop trainer is the aircraft of choice for the early stages of the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) program.

Lycoming is making quick progress with its IE2 electronic engine controls in the Lancair Evolution. The company is shooting for a certified version by the end of 2010 or early 2011. Lycoming’s Jim Morris gave Avweb an update on the project.

We have converted one of the Martin Jetpacks to remote control so that we can push the flight envelope without risk to a pilot.

The Woopy-Fly, a sort of paraglider/trike/ultralight hybrid shown on the world state at Aero Friedrichshafen this April, 2010, in Germany, has a wing that folds for storage like a paraglider.

NASA pilots and flight engineers, together with colleagues from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have successfully completed the first science flight of the Global Hawk aircraft over the Pacific Ocean.