Also: Lufthansa Chops 4000, FlyNow eCopter, Pilatus PC-12 PRO, USMC Buys 99 CH-53Ks Otto Aerospace announced that Flexjet will be its first fleet customer and its launch customer for the Phantom 3500 business jet, a windowless, ultra-efficient clean sheet aircraft that takes advantage of laminar-flow aerodynamics and all-carbon fiber composite that together cut fuel burn by 60 percent or more. The agreement is for a firm 300 aircraft with additional options, and with a value of $5.9 billion, is reportedly one of the largest aircraft orders with an OEM in business aviation history. Almost a year after DJI filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Defense over its designation as a ‘Chinese Military Company’, the courts have reached a decision… and the drone maker won’t be happy with it. Judges, unsurprisingly, determined that there was not enough evidence separating DJI from the Chinese Communist Party to overrule the DoD’s claims. After years of not-so-patiently waiting through technological mishaps and costly outages, pilots are finally getting the update they’ve been asking for: a shiny new Notice to Airmen system. While several examples come to mind, the most significant NOTAM failure was in January 2023. The system outage resulted in the first nationwide ground stop since 2001, affecting over 11,000 flights in the process. All this — and MORE in today’s episode of Airborne-Unlimited!!!
