One theme to my recent reporting and media support in the personal aviation industry has focused on the advanced materials from which the latest aircraft are composed. Composite airframes have matured over the past 20 years—no more overbuilt Beech Starships; now we have more than 10,000 Cirrus SR series singles delivered. But beyond the “skin” lie applications for everything from carbon fiber to thermoplastics in game-changing ways.
Hartzell’s Composite Props
Case in point: Hartzell’s ever-expanding line of composite propellers. The first composite prop was essentially a wood core with a metal leading edge—but we’re way, way beyond that now.
We have had the pleasure of supporting Hartzell’s media efforts at AERO this year, and it’s been very cool to have a front seat to the deep dive they have provided on just how different their new props are. Laid over a rigid urethane foam core, dozens of layers build up the body of the blade over a stainless steel shank. A nickel cobalt leading edge protects the robust blade, belying its thin profile. These stand up so well to the rigors of flight that they have essentially an unlimited life—they can be overhauled repeatedly, adding materials back up to spec rather than filing them away.
A recent white paper released by Hartzell outlines just how this is done, and it’s worth a read, since their props can be found on everything from the CubCrafters Carbon Cub to the Cirrus SR22T to the Daher TBM 960.
JJ Frigge, president of Hartzell Propeller, talks composite props with Flyer’s Ian Seager in front of the Carbon Cub at AERO 2025. [Credit: Julie Boatman]Hartzell’s first press conference at AERO 2025 gave President JJ Frigge the opportunity to brief the media on the latest in composite prop technology. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
That Citation Longitude Wing
Another place where you’ll find advanced materials making manufacturing more streamlined—and often reducing parts count—lies within the wings and fuselages of Textron Aviation’s Citation Longitude and soon-to-debut Beechcraft Denali. I sat down with Jimmy Beeson, vice president of product innovations at TextAv, and he described how they are able to build the wing monolithically on the Longitude, and they are applying similar principles within the airframe of the Denali. The clean-sheet designs allow for this development—and form one solid reason why we can’t just innovate iteratively. We need to start from scratch to realize the biggest leaps in technology.
Textron Aviation’s Cessna Citation Latitude features advanced materials inside and throughout the airframe. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Aura Aero’s Integral R
While a composite aerobatic aircraft doesn’t feel quite as new, the beauty of the recently EASA certified Integral R two-seater lies more than skin deep. The R made its stateside debut at the Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo, and no less an aerobatic star than Mike Goulian has taken it up as his latest mount.
Aura Aero recently delivered the first Integral R in its portfolio of two-seat composite aircraft. [Credit: Julie Boatman0
If you would have asked me 100 days ago, I could not have anticipated the landscape we currently survey as we entered the week at AERO 2025 in Friedrichshafen, Germany.
Or could I? We certainly knew from past experience that tariffs might rear their head in the second round of this administration in the U.S. What I didn’t expect was the apparent tilting of the map of allies in the geopolitical sphere. For which I only have the answer: this too shall pass, along with other mercurial shifts we’re now learning to brace ourselves for.
Still, in the face of all these headwinds, the aviation industry presses forward, even as deliveries pause while the uncertainty over what tariffs will be applied, by whom, on what finished products and raw materials, and when. At this moment (3:40 am CET on Thursday, April 10), we have one answer, but that is guaranteed to change.
The Elixir two-seat trainer with a Rotax 912 is one of 12 aircraft on order for Egnatia in Greece. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Elixir, Daher, Cirrus
Taking a moment to reflect on the success of 2024—a balm to soothe our collective nerves—the trio of OEMs holding press conferences on Wednesday morning reported gains last year in deliveries across models, and healthy backlogs on which to balance into the coming months.
Elixir Aircraft reported 33 of its two-seat training aircraft delivered overall, with up to 60 firm orders (two years’ production at current rates), while Daher delivered 82 total (56 TBMs and 26 Kodiak 100s/900s) with a 1- to 2-year backlog on those models. Cirrus pushed out 630 of its SR Series, and 101 Vision Jets, and also sits on a strong order book.
Daher Aircraft CEO Nicolas Chabbert (left) presents findings from the EcoPulse project with Head of Design Christophe Robin. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Whether those hold is anyone’s guess. With little room on price to absorb tariffs, the landscape ahead is unclear. Nicolas Chabbert, CEO of Daher’s Aircraft division, put it plainly: “Are people ready to pay more? They are ready to pay nothing more… So who’s going to pay?” The OEMs can’t. Why? “Because we can’t. If aviation was hiding 20 or 30 percent margin, you’ve got to tell me.”
Todd Simmons, head of customer experience at Cirrus, highlighted deliveries of the SR Series and Vision Jet. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
While Cirrus keeps its primary manufacturing lines in the U.S., in Duluth, Minnesota, and other facilities, Daher has production spread between plants in France and Idaho, and a third line in development in Stuart, Florida. But even though there is a head start on transforming portions of the buildings at the former Triumph plant, Daher doesn’t expect to begin cranking out TBMs on that line until early 2027. Elixir is growing at La Rochelle, on France’s west coast, along with plans for reassembly in Sarasota, Florida, already underway, with FAA certification on track for later this year, according to Elixir co-founder and CMO Cyril Champenois.
But the idea that companies can flip a switch on a new production line fast enough to mitigate the pause in deliveries prompted by the tariffs on the table is ludicrous to anyone with intimate knowledge of aircraft manufacturing.
Business Aviation Leadership Panel
At noon, the new Business Aviation Show Hub (“the Dome”) outside of Hall A2 at AERO, buzzed with a collection of leaders convened to further explore these concerns. While workforce recruitment and implementation of technology such as AI have been at the forefront of conversation for the past couple of years, the global economic scene now overshadows positive gains in these areas.
New GAMA president and CEO Jim Viola joined Florian Guillermet, executive director at EASA; Carlos Brana, Dassault Aviation; Phil Straub, Garmin Aviation; Lannie O’Bannion, Textron Aviation, Deniz Weissenborn, Platoon Aviation; and Chabbert, hosted by Volker Thomalla, editor in chief at Aerobuzz.de, to give an assessment.
Focusing on what they can control—building on the sector’s safety record, attracting new talent, striving towards net zero emissions—those on the panel sent the clear message that they intend to continue cooperation across the pond. There’s an ocean there, between Europe and North America, but it’s not perceived as a barrier. Guillermet in particular called out this desire to continue the shared roadmap between FAA and EASA. “We need to have an approach that is building confidence; there is no reason not to have it.” While the treatment of business aviation in Europe faces intense bias against it, he expressed hope that by promoting the benefits to society generated by utilizing aircraft in a variety of roles those attitudes can be countered.
Flying is all about preparing for unforeseen events and building resiliency into our procedures and processes to withstand areas of turbulence. We must build this resiliency into our relationships as well, as it is clearly those we rely upon to ensure we stay the course. Ours is a global industry, interconnected in ways that resist the “dis-integration” pressure upon us. Like an SOP honed over time, this foundation forms our strength. Together, facing the unexpected with that in mind.
AERO filled its 12 halls with an electric energy, notable on the light end of the market.
And this makes sense, because the show’s DNA lies in ultralights, gliders, balloons, training airplanes—even remote-control models.
Now it has logged 30 “flights,” so to speak, running back to 1977 when it was part of a regional motorsports exhibition, and happening every other year until it became an annual event in a few years back, with a pause for two years for COVID.
When SOCATA first put its TBM 700 prototype on display in 1994, it helped introduce higher-end personal and business aviation into the show. With the presence of Pilatus, Cessna and Beechcraft (now Textron Aviation) in the 2000s, and now Gulfstream with its G500 on display this year—it indicates the importance of this growing B2B show in the marketplace for turboprops and jets.
These aircraft must also meet the industry’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050—and interim targets won’t likely be met by pure electric aircraft or those that run on hydrogen.
While Safran’s ENGINeUS motors gain in kWs (and equivalent horsepower) and power storage hits the 800-kW level, our brightest minds still don’t have a good way to translate that power into speed and range—and do it safely.
Case in point: Daher’s EcoPulse project, which places six Safran motors in distributed positions on its TBM-based wings powered via an Airbus storage system—but keeps a Pratt & Whitney PT6A-66D up front. Judging by the flight test profiles I talked about with Daher’s head of design, Christophe Robin, the project is working through a host of problem sets, and it won’t present as a marketable product. In SVP of aircraft Nicolas Chabbert’s update at Sun ’n Fun, and again at AERO, he noted the need to craft a salable solution that would likely look nothing like it. There are constraints and issues associated with flying around carrying that amount of battery power and distributing it safely in an airplane’s joint “cardiovascular” and “nervous” systems that still need sorting through.
Whatever they bring to the table, it won’t be flying on pure electrical power—not to make their self-imposed target date of 2027. And that makes a lot of sense. In talking with Tine Tomažič of Pipistrel, he explained that to get the speed and range you need for a good cross-country mount (such as Pipistrel’s Panthera design), you need the hybrid route for the near future. The battery tech just isn’t there yet.
So we need to keep those turbines running—and on a zero-emission fuel as soon as we can. Pressure looms larger in Europe to meet net-zero goals before 2050. While we didn’t see any protests at AERO from the general public, the specter of them loomed as we headed to Munich for our flight back across the pond. The industry is working diligently towards getting sustainable aviation fuel to the users who have vowed to adopt it—so they can keep projects like the hybrid Panthera and the EcoPulse innovating towards the future.
The way to do this is not to syphon off all the SAF to the airlines at major airports like Amsterdam’s Schipol and Paris-Orly. We can adopt book and claim practices to help offset high prices and availability of SAF to the 2,000 or so airports in the EU that business aviation uses.
And we can support the development of alternative bio sources for SAF that help increase its volume overall. Projects like Gevo’s intrigue me as cradle-to cradle solutions for utilizing biowaste on a large enough scale to make more than a drop in the bucket.
And biz av should have primary access to it first—because this is where the skunk works live and thrive.
