Aircraft

Major enhancements inside and out make Piper’s M600 the most advanced iteration of the PA-46 ever. Four key changes to the previous Meridian turboprop elevate the new M600 to a worthy contender for Flying’s 2017 Innovation Award. First, Piper designed an all-new wing that offers improvements in payload and speed and can hold more fuel. […]

Only rarely does a benchmark airplane come along that demands the creation of an entirely new category in which to place it, one that shatters conventional thinking with radical leaps in design and operating efficiency. The SF50 Vision Jet from Cirrus Aircraft is one of these uncommon airplanes. As such, the typical spin around the […]

A new workhorse 10-seat single-engine turboprop is on the verge of hitting the market after India’s Mahindra Aerospace announced U.S. and Australian certification of the Airvan 10. With a price of around $1.7 million, the utility turboprop is well suited in parts of the world where avgas is hard or impossible to come by. It […]

The two-seat Sonaca 200 has successfully taken to the skies at the Brussels South Charleroi Airport in Belgium. The second assembled airplane, Flight Test Aircraft 2, was used for the flight, which lasted about 10 minutes, said Sonaca Aircraft‘s chief commercial officer and pilot Pierre Van Wetter. Since then, several additional flights have taken place, […]

“Only rarely does a benchmark airplane come along that demands the creation of an entirely new category in which to place it, one that shatters conventional thinking with radical leaps in design and operating efficiency.” That’s just the first sentence of our review of the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet in the July issue of Flying, […]

Airbus Helicopters unveiled a model of the high-speed demonstrator it is developing as part of the Clean Sky 2 European research program at the Paris Air Show. “Today we unveil our bold vision for the future of high-speed rotorcraft,” Airbus Helicopters CEO Guillaume Faury said in a press release. “This new project, pulling together the […]

The Boom supersonic transport moved another step closer to reality this week when CEO Blake Scholl announced 76 firm orders at the Paris Air Show for the as yet unproven aircraft. While customer identities have not been revealed, except for the Virgin Group, the remaining four are believed to be airlines. Billionaire Richard Branson holds […]

While Boeing, Airbus and Lockheed are making huge splashes (and sales) and stealing all the headlines in the opening days of the 2017 Paris Air Show, some smaller companies and aircraft are still getting their share of the spotlight. One such aircraft is the cool and very simple SureFly personal helicopter and VTOL aircraft, which […]

James Wiebe and his Belite Aircraft team wanted to build a strong, lightweight airplane that would demand a minimal amount of labor to complete. In the early days of 2017 he created a clean-sheet aircraft with great short-field performance that he called the Chipper. It moved from the CAD system he and his team used […]

The 2017 International Paris Air Show kicked off in style on Monday, as French President Emmanuel Macron flew in aboard Airbus’ A400M military transporter. His arrival was followed by the always-exciting Patrouille de France aerial display team, as well as Airbus’ massive A380. It was a necessary spectacle for Airbus, which is using the event […]