For those of you that may have missed the Martin Jetpack demo at Airventure.

Lockheed Martin conducted the first flight for the their newest Joint Strike Fighter prototype Wednesday. The newest jet prototype to fly is a F-35B Lightening II, a short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) version, that is intended for the Marine Corps and coalition parters who use short and jump deck carriers like Australia, Britain and Italy. Norway, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada and Denmark are also looking at buying variants of the F-35. Graham Tomlinson a British test pilot and a former British Harrier test pilot now working for BAE Flight Systems conducted the test flight.

With fuel prices on the rise, the cost of general aviation is quickly becoming linked to the survival of general aviation. That is to say if we can't afford to fly it's going to be hard to get new pilots... Headlines from earlier this year point out increasing efforts to find a viable solution. Alternatives are promising, however, their implementation is frought with many potholes like certifications and testing.

A company by the name of Swift Enterprises announced earlier this week that they have successfully developed an alternative to 100LL aviation fuel. The press release doesn't provide much detail about the fuel itself other than it will be able to "seamlessly replace" 100LL in the aviation market. Their website lists 5 advantages to the fuel which include a 15%-20% range increase and no need for stabilizers. They are also claiming that no engine modifications would need to be made in order to use this fuel.

Continental Airlines is scheduled to become the first U.S. airline to take the biofuel plunge. This comes on the heels of Sir Richard Bransons biofuel flight in a Virgin Atlantic B-747. While I think this is a move to explore new technologies, there are others who are pointing to these developments as simply publicity stunts. I've got to agree that they've been great PR, but I think that they represent more than just stunts.

The "Woracle" blog over at FlightGlobal has a great article about the first flight of a pretty revolutionary new engine. The engine is called a Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) and is being developed through a partnership between the Air Force Research Labs (AFRL), ISSI and Scaled Composites. The design reminds me of a Pulse Jet Engine (pulsejet), but with a few more moving parts and a great deal more finesse.

It probably won't surprise you to hear that the US military wants it all. The Army's helicopters are getting older and the Air Force is abandoning helicopters in favor of the CV-22 Osprey. In the meantime, the Army's Future Combat System, or FCS, and Stryker vehicles are so large and heavy that no current aircraft will be able to provide them with tactical airlift. The military wants a VTOL aircraft that can carry these vehicles for long distances, and it looks like they are going to get it.

We've been covering developments with Green Flight International's work to power aircraft engines with biofuels. As mentioned on the BBC's website, Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic took biofuel testing to a whole new level today when a Boeing 747 was flown from London to Amsterdam with one engine running on biofuel.