Pilatus, the Swiss company best known for their versatile PC-12 turboprop, announced in May they are working on their first jet aircraft. The PC-24 is powered by two Williams turbine engines and will be able to use short and even unpaved runways. The cabin can be fitted with six to ten seats. A big cargo door will be standard. The company has designed its own “Advanced Cockpit Environment” system, which aims to reduce workloads for a single pilot. The jet project began last summer and work on the prototype “is in full swing” in Switzerland, the company said. First flight is expected by the end of 2014, with deliveries to start in 2017, at a price of about $9 million. The company said the program is fully funded from its own resources.
Virgin Galactic, the Richard Branson-owned company working with designs created by Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites, said recently test flights into space will start by the end of this year, with passenger flights to start soon after. The carrier vehicle, WhiteKnightTwo, flies to about 50,000 feet, where the passenger capsule, rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo, is released and climbs above 100,000 feet. After a brief period when passengers can experience weightlessness and view the black sky of space, the ship will glide back to earth at the company’s spaceport in New Mexico. The dual-ship design is based on Rutan’s much smaller, but similar, aircraft that won the X Prize.
