Piper Aircraft announced its new flagship aircraft, the M700 Fury, has received Flight into Known Icing (FIKI) certification from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The M700 Fury, which was certified in March of this year, boasts impressive capabilities—including a max cruise speed of 301 knots, a max range of 1852 NM and a standard useful load of 2,320 pounds. The aircraft is powered by a Pratt & Whitney PT6A-52 700 SHP engine and features Garmin’s Autoland technology.
“The certification of FIKI is a crucial part of the overall value proposition of the M700 FURY, as well as a key safety feature for the operator,” said President and CEO of Piper Aircraft John Calcagno in a recent press release.
Piper says the FIKI system comes standard on all on all M700 Fury aircraft and features an electromechanical expulsion deicing system on the tail and the leading edge of the wing. The manufacturer noted that international certifications for the M700 and FIKI are on track, with deliveries for those regions to begin in the third quarter.
It’s way out of my price range, but I’m glad to see an American staple continuing to introduce new and improved products. I’m sure they’ll sell lots of these.
Great that it’s American manufacturing and design. Shame the company is owned by the Brunei government.
The -700 model is just an amendment to the A25SO type certificate from which was submitted in 1979 and approved 40 years ago in 1983 By submitting PA-46 -700 to using the prior TC, Piper is specifically telling the FAA this is not a new design, so I am not sure this plane is an advertisement for American Technology as this is a was new tech when Jimmy Carter was president.
Looking through the TCDS, the data shows the incremental improvements in this new model are on the PT-6A side, which of course is from P&W Canada.
Its cost starts at $4.1m – I am not sure if that is a ringing endorsement of American manufacturing. I’m not so “sure they’ll sell a lots of these”, based on sales history, I would assume less than two dozen a year if they’re lucky
Not exactly sure what the shame of being owned by the Brunei government is. We’re not talking about high tech cutting edge technology that some foreign gov’t is trying to pilfer – again it’s a 45 year old design from a company that goes BK every few years which sells 200 or so planes a year. If someone sees some business potential there, that’s great, but no US investors were interested, and the other choice was liquidation. They actually seem to be doing well under the current management, and these are US jobs still, so I’d consider them lucky Brunei took the bait.