Ben Lovegrove

Most eVTOL aircraft are built around one question: can we move two to four people between city centres? AutoFlight's Matrix asks a different one. At five tonnes, it pushes well beyond the payload ceiling of every conventional air taxi in development. This weight class opens up cargo operations, multi-passenger routes, and use cases the lighter platforms simply cannot touch. The electric aviation story has mostly been about replacing the Uber. This one is about replacing something heavier. Whether the market is ready for it is a separate problem. But someone had to build it first. AutoFlight has done exactly that. thomasnet.com/insights/autof…

@learning_yohei British English is always correct. People may argue otherwise online but they do so on a platform invented by an Englishman (Sir Tim Berners-Lee). All other forms of English are a bastardised versions of the original often written with poor punctuation and grammar.

As a Japanese person learning English, which one should I write?😵‍💫

@BareReality Imampton Mosko Pillaricay

Shariaville or Stabbington?

Britain has paid Norway over £100 billion for gas since 2021. For gas they’re drilling in the North Sea, the same sea Ed Miliband has banned new drilling in on the British side. Madness.

China has been quietly building a disc-shaped eVTOL. Not a render. Not a concept. An aircraft that has completed test flights in Wuhan, designed specifically for tight urban environments where a conventional rotor layout won't work. The Western eVTOL narrative tends to revolve around the same few US and European startups chasing the same urban air taxi market. China has been developing differently shaped answers to differently shaped questions. A UFO-shaped aircraft completing urban test flights in 2026 is either the start of something important or a very expensive press release. The test flights suggest it might be the former. euronews.com/next/2026/03/1…

The pipeline problem in aviation doesn't start at flight school. It starts at the point where a teenager decides whether aviation is even possible for someone like them. Van Nuys Airport is doing the unsexy version of fixing that. A youth academy. Local students. Direct connections to aviation colleges and career pathways. No government strategy document. No headline-grabbing announcement. Just the slow, necessary work of showing young people a door that most of them didn't know existed. The industry needs a hundred more of these. sanfernandosun.com/2026/03/18/van…

Let’s go into the weekend like we mean it friends Don’t be drawn into the cesspit of darkness. Look up to the sky. Go spend your health.

Here's the version of this story that isn't being told loudly enough. Gulf carriers are expanding aggressively into European routes. Their cabin crew work under different contracts, different pay structures, different regulatory regimes. European unions are now asking what happens to the European cabin crew career when the competition isn't playing by the same rules. This isn't a question about whether Gulf airlines are good or bad. It's about what happens to labour standards when you can route around them. A race to the bottom doesn't need a winner for everyone else to lose. msn.com/en-us/travel/n…

@KanangaBond Wonderful. A long and interesting career lies before him.

@BensBookmarks My son has just completed 4 years of training. He is loving the salary

Ryanair has chosen Madrid for its biggest maintenance hub in Europe. 700 jobs. The largest MRO facility in its European network. A clear signal about where the fleet is growing. The technician shortage gets less attention than the pilot shortage. But it's every bit as real. In some ways harder to fix. Skilled maintenance engineers take years to train, certify, and build meaningful experience. You won't hire your way out of that gap at speed. A 700-job hub doesn't solve the shortage. But it tells you where the money is going. And Madrid has made itself relevant to the next chapter of European aviation. thetraveler.org/madrid-lands-r…

@UAPReportingCnt @PatrickQJackson - is the sphere network there to protect us or is it part of the system described in this video?

🚨 Why was 90% of Peter Jennings’ primetime UFO special cut before it ever aired? Find out on @AmericanALCHMY Link below: 👇

The US Air Force missed its 2024 pilot training target. The goal was 1,500 new pilots. They didn't get there. They haven't been getting there for years. Part of that story is money. Military pilot pay is more complicated than a single headline figure: allowances, bonuses, and retention incentives layer on top of base salary. But when you put those numbers alongside what a Delta captain earns, the gap is hard to ignore. Understanding the delta between military and civilian aviation careers matters for anyone weighing which path to take. The math isn't always what you'd expect. msn.com/en-us/news/us/…

The most dangerous phase of a pilot's career is not the beginning. It is the plateau. Maya Johnson, Flight Instructor Follow for more, and I will always give you the honest version. aviationcareerguides.com #InstrumentRating #PilotLife #AviationCareers #LearnToFly #FlightTraining #PPL #Aviation #CFI

The global pilot shortage has created an unexpected winner. Georgia, the country not the state, is positioning itself as a serious destination for international flight training. Lower costs. Available infrastructure. A long runway, so to speak. The shortage isn't cyclical. Everyone from regulators to airline CEOs has been saying so for years. The question is where the next generation of pilots actually gets trained. Countries that move fast on that answer build industries. Countries that don't watch the opportunity leave. Georgia is moving fast. georgiatoday.ge/why-georgia-co…

@donmcgowan Plenty of women gather at Stonehenge at these events, free and able to do as they wish without asking men for permission. The people that gather there don't ask that the laws change to suit them nor do they accuse people of being 'phobic if they're mocked or criticised.

Nigel Farage wants to ban this. Alongside Easter celebrations, Diwali and Eid.

@LBC This is the point at which the crocodile decides it’s time to eat the feeder not the food.

Australia’s PM called a 'putrid dog' and chased out of mosque lbc.co.uk/article/austra…

Swiss Airlines just offered cabin crew $19,000 to resign. Not because of a downturn. Not because of a merger. Because the airline doesn't have enough aircraft flying, and not enough pilots to fly the ones it does. The A220's Pratt & Whitney engine saga continues to ground aircraft across the fleet. And a separate, independent pilot shortage is cutting the schedule further. Two crises running at the same time. One balance sheet absorbing both. The people accepting the buyout didn't cause either problem. They're the ones bearing the cost. $19,000 is the price of a problem you couldn't plan for. nomadlawyer.org/airbus-a220-pr…

@OborneTweets For decades now, anyone objecting to or merely pointing out the massive changes that have occurred in our society have been tarnished with words like racist, bigot, fascist, islamophobe, xenophobe etc. There's no debate, just the constant firehose of slurs.

Kemi Badenoch's decision to throw her weight behind Nick Timothy is a defining moment. The Tory party under her leadership is a cesspit of Islamophobic hatred and racist bigotry. My new column for Middle East Eye: middleeasteye.net/opinion/nick-t…

@ChrisGPackham @Helen_Whately Net Zero is not just economic suicide, it's also a gigantic con in which the supposed reductions in emissions have been outsourced to China, driving up the costs for everything while we're forced to pay green levies for 'clean, cheap energy' that never appears.

On BBC Question Time, @Helen_Whately just said ‘we can’t afford Net Zero’ . She is a human health hazard and grossly misinformed or lying . Time to call out the lunatics leading us to hell . No facts , no truth , no integrity - no hope.

@elonmusk @diana_dukic Small accounts get zero exposure even if they’re blue ticked. Articles get no visibility. I get far more traction LinkedIn for the same content.

@diana_dukic What needs to be better?

Went from scrolling 24/7 to not even wanting to log in. X just hasn’t been hitting the same lately.