JetZero has broken ground on its first aircraft factory, an eight-million-sq-ft plant at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the company will produce its Z4 blended-wing-body airliner. The company expects to invest $4.7 billion and create more than 14,500 jobs in Guilford County over the next decade.

Italy's Leonardo and Turkish group Baykar have performed a series of what the former terms “joint autonomous formation flights” as part of the K-Swarm program, aimed at designing and developing interoperability between crewed and uncrewed aircraft. The recent formation trial alongside a crewed aircraft built on a December 2025 milestone that saw two Kizilelma drones perform an autonomous close formation flight.

Danish start-up Acodyne has raised €2.5 million (about $2.9 million) in a pre-seed funding round to develop a family of uncrewed electric Cargo Drones. Announcing the venture capital backing on June 22, the company said the drones will combine vertical takeoff and fixed-wing operations to carry payloads of between 100 and 500 kilograms (220 to 1,100 pounds) at speeds of up to 450 kilometers per hour (243 knots).

Honeywell Aerospace has launched its Kestrel compact navigation solution, which it says is designed to help uncrewed aerial systems operate reliably in contested environments where GPS signals may be degraded, jammed, or spoofed. Announcing Kestrel on June 17, the company said it is around 40% smaller than comparable navigation systems, “while still delivering an up to 80% improvement in navigation accuracy for uncrewed platforms.”

Eve Air Mobility is preparing to make the first low-speed transition flight of its Eve 100 eVTOL in the coming weeks. This milestone, which Eve predicts will happen shortly before the Farnborough International air show in July, will precede a full-speed transition at 90 knots later in the year.

Bye Aerospace says it is nearing the first flight of the electric eFlyer 2 two-seat training airplane and has revealed suppliers that will provide major components and equipment for the program. These include composite structure, powerplant, batteries, and avionics. 

Deutsche Aircraft is working on a drone to extend the mission capabilities of the newly announced multirole version of the modernized D328 twin turboprop it is bringing to market. The plans for both its uncrewed platform and the D328MR were unveiled during the ILA Berlin show, where the OEM explained how this “integrated uncrewed aircraft capability” could be relevant in civil and governmental applications.

In its new report The Future of Advanced Air Mobility 2026, UK-based Valour Consultancy has predicted that the in-service fleet of passenger-carrying eVTOLs will reach 6,824 by 2050. While acknowledging that this overall figure is “much more modest in size than the wildly optimistic projections” from the early 2020s, the company said air taxis are nevertheless still on track to “largely complement—not replace—existing modes of transport such as helicopters and light jets.”