Navy officials and military developers are beaming with smiles of success for they are the proud papas of the newest military marvel: a robotic jet fighter. The X-47B, built by Northrop Grumman, completed its first successful test flight on February 4th at Edwards Air Force Base in California without the assistance of an onboard or remote human pilot. It’s all automated. The aircraft’s sleek tailless design will make it harder to spot on radar, but proves a unique challenge for an unmanned aerial system (UAS). Yet the X-47B pulled off the historic test flight with great success, as you’ll see in the video below. The task ahead will prove much harder. The US Navy is looking to place the robot jet fighter on aircraft carriers in the next decade, with ocean-located trials slated for 2013.

The chairman of British Airways [Martin Broughton] has launched an attack on "completely redundant" airport checks and said the UK should stop "kowtowing" to US demands for increased security.

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Mr Broughton said no one wanted weak security, but he added: "We all know there's quite a number of elements in the security programme which are completely redundant and they should be sorted out."

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday it's too early to say when aviation officials can lift a ban on liquids on board flights despite international officials saying it could come as early as 2012.

Still good news though. I hadn't heard they were even considering ending this "if you bring toothpaste on a plane, you're helping the terrorists!!!1!" nonsense.

On Wednesday, [Todd] Reichert, a PhD student at the [University of Toronto] Institute for Aerospace Studies, announced he had completed the first continuous flight of a human-powered aircraft with birdlike flapping wings, a device known as an ornithopter.

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Reichert’s ornithopter flight, which lasted 19.3 seconds and covered 145 metres, is the first entirely powered by a human being. “This is the last first in aviation, and in many ways the most significant one,” said James DeLaurier, who oversaw the project.