Textron Acquires Pipistrel: A Good Thing?

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Textron acquires Pipistrel – just another merger?  An age-old cartoon shows ever-bigger fish gobbling up smaller fish, a kind of allegory for capitalist, competitive markets, perhaps.  In the electric flight world, this acquisitive spirit is exemplified by the news that Textron, “home to Cessna, Beechcraft, and Bell aviation brands,” is purchasing the smaller Slovenian firm Pipistel.  Pipistrel has grown from humble origins producing powered hang gliders to its current status as a major supplier of small training aircraft,  electric motor gliders and trainers and cargo vehicles. What might be great joy for Ivo Boscarol, founder and CEO of Pipistrel, comes with varying degrees of happiness and concern for others.  Boscarol will remain as Chairman Emeritus and minority stockholder for the next two years and has these encouraging words for Pipistrel’s future. “To drive Pipistrel’s ambitious goals and to continue its story of success, the joining of Textron and Pipistrel provides deep expertise and resources which would otherwise be inaccessible to …

Pipistrel’s Triple Alliance Will Fly High in China

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Pipistrel’s triple alliance with SF Express, a Chinese package delivery enterprise, and Amazilia, a software/hardware firm in Germany, will help fulfill high-flying ambitions.  Pipistrel, a well-established company with its roots in Slovenia, already has affiliates in Italy, China, and the USA.  Now, its partnership with SF Express and  Amazilia has obvious links to the need to keep things on track in transporting people and cargo with the new eVTOLs (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) vehicles Pipistrel is developing.  SF Express is a huge “logistics” firm, delivering packages throughout all of China.  “Amazilia Aerospace is a young engineering company in the heart of Munich, Germany, developing digital flight control, flight guidance, and vehicle management systems for civil manned and unmanned aircraft.” Pipistrel is crafting a “heavy cargo hybrid VTOL drone” for SF Express, capable of taking products anywhere in China within 36 hours – a significant challenge in such a huge country.  It needs to be able to climb over …

Happy Velis Electro News from Pipistrel

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Taja Boscarol, Public Relations Manager for Pipistel Vertical Solutions, and Michael Coates, Master Distributor for USA, Australia & New Zealand, shared a lot of happy news this week about their Velis Electro. Electric Outsells Gasoline Powered Michael puts his news in enthusiastic, all-caps context.  “The US has a new president, Europe is under siege from new Covid varieties, and Pipistrel is adding a SECOND SHIFT TO KEEP UP WITH PRODUCTION! “Did you know that in 2020 Pipistrel DELIVERED 111 (one-hundred and eleven) of the certified Pipistrel Velis electric aircraft, as well as many more Pipistrel ALPHA Electro aircraft?  In fact, this year for the first time ever, Pipistrel produced more electric aircraft than gasoline powered!” More than 70 Pipistrel Velis aircraft are already on 2021’s order books, with many more anticipated through the remaining 11 months of the year. The second shift essentially means doubling production, and this of course leads to increased demand from suppliers.  Michael adds, “Pipistrel is …

Pipistrel’s Plans Evolve in Exciting Ways

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In its 30th year, Pipistrel is making many changes, from a crisp new logo to new emphases and technologies.  Its 801, intended for Uber’s Urban Air Mobility program, will segue into a cargo version and return later after the firm gains experience with deliveries.  Meanwhile, Pipistrel will concentrate on developing a 19-seat, 300-mile range regional airliner while growing its global outreach for personal aircraft.  Pipistrel is evolving and flourishing in exciting new ways. From Hang Gliders to Global Reach Ivo Boscarol, founder, owner and president of Pipistrel companies, CEO of Pipistrel d.o.o. Shares a look at his firm’s three-decade history and plans for the near future. Pipistrel reports in its newsletter, “The information that Pipistrel is running a program developing a large cargo-delivery hybrid-electric UAV in-house is accurate. For this program, we will be communicating about progress on a separate occasion, when we are ready to unveil the exact specifications, purpose and capability.”  It will at the same time hold …

Atea Looks Like a Cessna Overhead

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French company Ascendance Flight Technologies offers a four-seat design that combines hybrid propulsion with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, and then scoots around on conventional wings.  Etea’s technology seems a lot like that of Pipistrel’s 801 or several other eVTOLs. Some Historical Perspective The design team at Ascendance comes from Airbus, and claims to have made the first electric aircraft flight across the English Channel with the E-Fan 2.0.  Your editor offers a few minor inclusions. First, as we reported on October 10, 2009, “Gerard Thevenot, a long-time championship-level hang-glider pilot, celebrated the centennial of Louis Bleriot’s flight across la Manche by flying his hydrogen-powered La Mouette hang glider over roughly the same route Bleriot took between Calais and Dover on August 6, 2009.  Missing the centenary by a few days (Bleriot made the hop on July 25, 1909), Thevenot took an hour and seven minutes to duplicate the trip Bleriot managed in 37 minutes.”  It was an Eck/Geiger propelled machine, …

Pipistrel Electrics in America and France

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Celebrating its 30th anniversary, Pipistrel rolled out its new 801 at the UBER Elevate Summit in Washington, D. C. last week and is flying its Alpha Electro Trainer at the Paris Air Show all this week. Launching the 801 at UBER Elevate Dr. Tine Tomažič, Pipistrel’s Director of Research & Development, was a keynote speaker at the conference in Washington, D.C. on June 11, where he presented just enough to whet appetites for more on the coming 801 eVTOL design.  His final touch – presenting an ostensibly realistic recording of the 801’s sound, demonstrated how quiet the vehicle will be. That’s accounted for by the eight fans being tuned to different frequencies, cancelling each other out like the dynamics in noise-cancelling headphones.  That’s just one of the design factors in a well-integrated design.  Its integrated lift system, embedded in the craft’s wings, help mitigate noise. The specially-shaped fans will operate at relatively low RPMs, another step in reducing noise.  Conceptual …

Pipistrel, Honeywell Sign MOU

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The fun part of writing this blog is receiving news of hopeful aspirations and plans for a thriving future. Taja Boscarol, one of the founders of Pipistrel, shared such news this week. “It is my greatest pleasure and honor to announce that Pipistrel and Honeywell signed an MOU(Memo of Understanding) regarding collaboration on aircraft technologies for urban air mobility.” The Slovenian/American joint venture headlined its press release, “PIPISTREL AND HONEYWELL COLLABORATE ON AIRCRAFT TECHNOLOGIES FOR URBAN AIR MOBILITY,” with the multi-faceted secondary headline, “Pipistrel and Honeywell combine aerospace expertise to address the technical, regulatory and business challenges of the emerging on-demand mobility market.”  eVTOL News lists over 140 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft on its web site.  Early in the 20th century, there were thousands of automobile manufacturers.  Such high-end products with their attendant development and manufacturing costs can’t be maintained by all the competitors, especially when market winners survive by growing in efficiency and productivity to make desirable …

Referencing Uber’s Elevated Challenge

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We can tell things are heating up in the electric aircraft marketplace.  Established aircraft companies are investing (Boeing and Airbus for starters), growing numbers are planning for electrified and autonomous future flight (Uber Elevate Summit), and an absolute plethora of new designs are tumbling forth from an aeronautical cornucopia.  Their video of an Uber sky taxi ride illustrates the charm of the idea. A Common Reference Uber provided two common reference eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) reference models for partners to emulate.  Both seem to share a common passenger pod with an unusually long tail boom. Perhaps taking the 2011 Green Flight Challenge as his reference point, Mark Moore explained how Uber inspires others to give their best efforts to create several plausible vehicles.  The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) reports, “’We will never build a vehicle, but we want to make sure that our partners who are building vehicles are successful and that these aircraft are …

Pipistrel’s Tine Tomazic Tours West Coast for eVTOL

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Visiting Los Angeles for UBER’s second Annual Elevate Summit on May 8, Tine Tomazic and Igor Perkon presented Pipistrel’s new electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) concept.  As described in their press release, Pipistrel’s new design “utilizes dedicated propulsion systems for both cruising and vertical lift and embraces an aircraft styled family approach of eVTOL able to carry between 2 to 6 passengers.” Mark Moore, UBER’s Director of Engineering, attempted to find out about the “sauce” that helps make Pipistrel’s eVTOL concept unique, but was deflected by Tine’s response that the “airplane” (important distinction) would be a “cruise plus lift” machine, emphasizing speed of transit, but relying on electric power to provide vertical lift.  He also noted that propulsion would be distributed. At the Sustainable Aviation Symposium on May 11, Tine did not talk about that matter, but gave an excellent review of Pipistel’s electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft, and the company’s ongoing efforts to achieve “green” aviation.  They have been …

Pipistrel Electrifies China

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Taja Boscarol, Public Relations Manager for Slovenian aircraft company Pipistrel, announced the formal establishment of the fourth company of the Pipistrel Group at the Chamber of Commerce in Jurong City (Jiansu Province), China. The new company, PIPISTREL ASIA-PACIFIC, General Aviation Technology Co. Ltd. was founded by Ivo Boscarol (51-percent owner) and Danny Wu Hao (49-percent).  Hao, as financial partner, will provide the capital investment required for the construction of Project Jurong. The ownership of both Slovene companies, Pipistrel d.o.o. and Pipistrel Vertical Solutions (a new development under control of Tine Tomazic) remains 100-percent Slovenian as before. As Ms. Boscarol’s press release relates, “From now on, the PIPISTREL ASIA-PACIFIC, General Aviation Technology Co. Ltd company is the general distributor of Pipistrel for China. “It will be in charge for realization of the ‘Project Jurong’, the agreement about establishing an aviation and tourist center next to Jurong Lake national park. The agreement was signed between Pipistrel company and the government of the …