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Textron to acquire Pipistrel and form new business segment with a focus on developing sustainable aircraft

Tex­tron, home to the Cess­na, Beechcraft and Bell avi­a­tion brands, has con­firmed an agree­ment to pur­chase Sloven­ian elec­tric air­craft devel­op­er Pip­istrel

The trans­ac­tion is expect­ed dur­ing Q2 2022 and will also include the com­pa­nies PIPISTREL d.o.o., PIPISTREL VERTICAL SOLUTIONS d.o.o and PIPISTREL ITALIA SRL. Tex­tron also plans to form a new busi­ness seg­ment called Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion, which will be focused on the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able air­craft.

Scott Don­nel­ly, Tex­tron Chair­man and CEO, said: “Pip­istrel puts Tex­tron in a unique­ly strong posi­tion to devel­op tech­nolo­gies for the sus­tain­able avi­a­tion mar­ket and devel­op a vari­ety of new air­craft to meet a wide range of cus­tomer mis­sions. Today’s announce­ment sup­ports Textron’s long-term strat­e­gy to offer a fam­i­ly of sus­tain­able air­craft for urban air mobil­i­ty, gen­er­al avi­a­tion, car­go and spe­cial mis­sion roles.”

Head­quar­tered in Wichi­ta, Kansas, Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion will focus on sus­tain­able fly­ing, backed by Textron’s 100 years of exper­tise. Tak­ing the lead in Textron’s devel­op­ment of sus­tain­ably pow­ered flight, Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion will lever­age the indus­try-lead­ing prod­uct design, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and after­mar­ket solu­tions from across Textron’s busi­ness­es, cou­pled with the new­ly acquired exper­tise of Pip­istrel.

With Tex­tron, Pip­istrel will have access to greater resources, tech­ni­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry exper­tise and a glob­al air­craft sales and sup­port net­work, enabling it to accel­er­ate its devel­op­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of elec­tric and hybrid elec­tric air­craft. 

Pip­istrel founder and CEO, Ivo Boscarol, will remain a minor­i­ty share­hold­er as well as Chair­man Emer­i­tus, con­sult­ing on future prod­uct plans and strate­gies for a two-year peri­od. 

Boscarol said: “Under my 30-year lead­er­ship, Pipistrel’s team has achieved a unique prime posi­tion in per­son­al, afford­able, envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and elec­tric avi­a­tion. The trend and foun­da­tion for future projects have clear­ly been set.

“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 alone. With Tex­tron, we are togeth­er geared to strive for future growth and look for­ward to announc­ing excit­ing new prod­ucts and projects. I am delight­ed to con­tin­ue wit­ness­ing my vision become a real­i­ty by being active­ly engaged with the com­pa­ny for the future.”

In 2020, Pipistrel’s Velis Elec­tro became the world’s first and cur­rent­ly only, elec­tric air­craft to receive full type-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA).

This achieve­ment fol­lowed a series of elec­tric air­craft intro­duc­tions since the com­pa­ny began research and devel­op­ment of elec­tric propul­sion in 2000.  Pipistrel’s pio­neer­ing work has been recog­nised through awards from NASA, IDC, and oth­er organ­i­sa­tions.

The com­pa­ny, which offers a fam­i­ly of glid­ers and light air­craft with both elec­tric and com­bus­tion engines, has deliv­ered more than 2,500 light air­craft world­wide since its found­ing in 1989 and addi­tion­al­ly has both hybrid and elec­tric propul­sion mod­els under devel­op­ment.

Don­nel­ly added: “Pip­istrel has been cel­e­brat­ed as one of the world’s most impor­tant and suc­cess­ful man­u­fac­tur­ers of elec­tric air­craft. Tex­tron is com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing Pipistrel’s brand, head­quar­ters, research and devel­op­ment, and man­u­fac­tur­ing in Slove­nia and Italy, while mak­ing addi­tion­al invest­ments in Pip­istrel for the devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of future prod­ucts.” 

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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