This Week in GA: A Few Firsts

Who doesn’t love a first flight? Having had the privilege of standing on a rise adjacent to a runway watching the initial liftoff of a test article cloaked in patchwork primer green and composite blue, it always brings back fond memories. Even when that airplane is an evolution of a model, and not a clean-sheet design.

So it was that Textron Aviation marked the first flight of the Cessna Citation M2 Gen3 prototype in Wichita, Kansas, about a week ago. The flight, crewed by Tanner Towns and Andrew Thorson, stayed clearly routine, as it lasted 2.7 hours and achieved an altitude of 41,000 feet and speed up to 263 knots.

My own first flight in the first M2 version came during the 2022 Special Olympics Airlift, as I sat right seat for a friend going to fetch athletes from Orlando Executive Airport (KORL) following the Games that year. It’s but a coincidence that Textron Aviation is deep in preparation mode right now for this year’s SOA, which I’m looking forward to reporting on from the St. Paul Airport on June 27, departure day. Stay tuned! It’s an incredible event.

Falcon 6X Short Field

The Dassault Falcon series has a deserved reputation for making fine use of airfields that other ultra-wide long-range business jets must shy away from, and the Falcon 6X continues to prove its worth in this regard. Recently, one lucky test pilot crew took the 6X into La Môle, a challenging runway nestled in the French hills near Saint-Tropez. 

This video capturing the validation flights will only take 1:11 of your time, and it won’t be wasted.

New Leadership at Daher

A family company since its foundation in 1863, and an aerospace company since its acquisition of SOCATA beginning in 2009, Daher has evolved significantly in the past 10 years under the leadership of Didier Kayat as CEO. With aggressive positioning into key logistics areas and expansion of its aircraft manufacturing in the Americas, the French conglomerate now stands ready to make good on the moment, where its prowess in industrial services marries well with the need to bring together specialists to achieve the next generation of hybrid-electric powered aircraft.  

Following Kayat’s retirement at the end of March, Daher has named Michel Denis as CEO, placing its confidence in a veteran leader with broad experience not in aerospace, but in successive roles culminating in three terms as CEO at Manitou Group—operating in 35 countries and generating annual revenue of €2.7 billion—returning Manitou, a global leader in material handling and access platforms, to profitability. The stewardship of the next generation Daher aircraft surely is one of his top priorities, and we wish him well.

Spending 70 Hours in a Balloon

As we count down the last year until the centennial anniversary of the first transatlantic flight by powered aircraft, another milestone has been achieved in the world of ballooning—and in the annals of human endurance as well.

Indeed, the first transatlantic crossing of a balloon powered solely by hydrogen earlier this week took twice as long as Lindbergh’s feat in 1927. The trio of aeronauts, Peter Cuneo, Bert Padelt, and Alicia Hempleman-Adams, launched from Presque Isle, Maine, on Thursday, June 4, and did not touch down until more than 70 hours later, in Tandel, Luxembourg. In talking with our balloonist friends, their achievement is real: It’s a world record distance (upon validation by the FAI, Fédération Aeronautique International) for its type of balloon, but also a test of grit—they persevered through pounding rain, snow, and subfreezing temperatures in a tiny unpressurized basket to make the journey.

Who’s to say there’s no adventure left in the world?

What Happened to the Maverick Jet?

Adventure sometimes comes when you least expect it. And while the life of an aviation journalist remains rather less exciting than, say, the transatlantic balloonist, we have all had our moments when we find ourselves in a demo airplane that catches us off guard.

So was it with a former colleague of mine at a previous gig when he came back from his assessment flight in the Maverick TwinJet during EAA AirVenture back in the early 2000s. Paraphrased, he said he realized when he was at 12,000 feet screaming through the Oshkosh airspace at 300 knots that perhaps he’d been too hasty in accepting the demo flight. 

As it turned out, the experimental/amateur-built jet only saw four builds in its short life, and one of those met an ignominious end, serial number 1, in an accident in Melbourne, Florida. At that point, the program essentially closed down.

However, the Maverick TwinJet made the news this week, when the owner of serial number 2, Mike Seavall, donated his jet to Aims Community College, in Greeley, Colorado, for use in its maintenance training program. As an early example of composite build-craft, and with two T58 jet engines that once powered it past 330 knots, it’s a unicorn, and a rare find that these nascent aircraft technicians will get to study at length. And it’s a fine end for any project, to inspire new people to careers in aviation.