Textron Aviation Inc. has announced the successful first\nflight of its new twin utility turboprop, the Cessna SkyCourier. The milestone\nflight is a significant step toward entry into service for the clean-sheet\naircraft, and it kicks off the important flight test program that validates the\nperformance of the Cessna SkyCourier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday was an exciting day for our employees, our suppliers\nand our customers. The Cessna SkyCourier performed exactly as we expected,\nwhich is a testament to the entire team of men and women who worked together to\nprepare for this day,\u201d said Ron Draper, president and CEO, Textron Aviation.\n\u201cI\u2019m proud of the way the team has persevered through disruptions caused by the\nCOVID-19 global pandemic and remained focused on getting us to this point. The\nCessna SkyCourier will be an excellent product in its segment due to its\ncombination of cabin flexibility, payload capability, superior performance and\nlow operating costs. Our customers will be very pleased with what they\nexperience from this aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Cessna SkyCourier took off from the company\u2019s east\ncampus Beech Field Airport, piloted by Corey Eckhart, senior test pilot, and\nAaron Tobias, chief test pilot. During the 2-hour and 15-minute flight, the\nteam tested the aircraft\u2019s performance, stability and control, as well as its\npropulsion, environmental, flight controls and avionics systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were very pleased with how the Cessna SkyCourier\nperformed throughout its first flight,\u201d Eckhart said. \u201cIt was particularly\nimpressive to see how stable the aircraft handled on takeoff and landing. The\nCessna SkyCourier already displays a high level of maturity in its flight\ncharacteristics, especially for a first flight. We were able to accomplish\neverything we wanted on this flight, and that\u2019s an excellent start to the\nflight test program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prototype aircraft, along with five additional flight\nand ground test articles, will continue to expand on performance goals,\nfocusing on testing flight controls and aerodynamics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relentless capability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cessna SkyCourier, featuring Pratt & Whitney Canada\nPT6A-65SC engines, will be offered in various configurations including a\n6,000-pound payload capable freighter, a 19-seat passenger version or a mixed\npassenger\/freight combination, all based on the common platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cessna SkyCourier is designed for high utilization and\nwill deliver a combination of robust performance and lower operating costs.\nCessna SkyCourier will feature the popular Garmin G1000 NXi avionics suite and\noffer highlights such as a maximum cruise speed of up to 200 ktas and a maximum\nrange of 900 nm. Both freighter and passenger variants of the Cessna SkyCourier\nwill includer single-point pressure refueling as standard to enable faster\nturnarounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Textron Aviation Inc. today announced the successful first\nflight of its new twin utility turboprop, the Cessna SkyCourier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Textron Aviation Inc. has announced the successful first flight of its new twin utility turboprop, the Cessna SkyCourier. The milestone flight is a significant step toward entry into service for the clean-sheet aircraft, and it kicks off the important flight test program that validates the performance of the Cessna SkyCourier. \u201cToday was an exciting day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-international-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/CessnaSkyCourierTakeoff1-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15501,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15499\/revisions\/15501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}