Pipistrel and Textron: An Odd Marriage Indeed

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Curiously, as a cohort, skydivers—young ones—are environmentally woke. And since I am an internationally recognized expert on aviation of all stripes, I’m occasionally asked when I think we’ll all be jumping out of electric airplanes. My response is never. Maybe a little later, but basically never.

Following this week’s surprise announcement that Textron is buying Pipistrel, the world’s leading electric aircraft company, I’m preparing new data to again answer the question. Checking my sources and data, it still looks like never. I don’t think an infusion of Textron cash will change that much, but it will accelerate electric aircraft development and certification with uncertain implications.

To understand how weird and surprising this purchase is, consider the opposite poles these two companies occupy. Textron is a diverse multinational conglomerate that ranks 265 on the Fortune 500—revenues in the mid $13 billion range. It’s as lawyerly and buttoned down as any company I have ever covered, except maybe for Boeing. Slovenia-based Pipistrel is in the $40 millionish range and bubbles with the freewheeling creativity of the entrepreneurial company it actually is. If Textron is IBM, Pipistrel is Ben & Jerry’s; Pipistrel is Tatooine to Textron’s Earth. (At least it keeps the Chinese from getting it.)

I have a fairly vivid imagination and I can’t imagine how these two will fit together. Maybe Textron can’t either so it appears it won’t even try. Pipistrel will retain its nameplate and current product line and remain in Slovenia, occupying a separate new business segment called eAviation. It will take its place with Bell Helicopters, Textron Aviation, Textron Systems and Finance, although the exact reporting path remains to be seen.

So what does Textron get out of this deal? After all, we know this is a company that has shown, at best, a desultory interest in light piston aircraft and, in recent years, has canceled more airplanes than it has introduced. Who could forget those photos of Skycatchers being crushed and flicked into dumpsters? Or of the sad fate of a great aircraft line—the Columbia/Corvallis—which Cessna bought, fiddled with and flushed after a decade of indifferent sales and marketing.

One could reasonably wonder if the Pipistrel Virus and Alpha Trainer could suffer the same fate. In its press release, Textron said Pipistrel “puts Textron in a uniquely strong position to develop technologies for the sustainable aviation market … and a variety of new aircraft to meet a wide range of customer missions.”

I read that as drones, perhaps with a side order of electric training airplanes in the mid-term future. Textron is not now a major defense contractor but I suspect it sees the growth potential. Textron’s Systems division has an intriguing remote control tracked vehicle with a 30-mm canon and its own little drone system. It also has the Shadow medium-endurance drone system. The last time I visited Pipistrel in 2019, they had military work in the shop and it’s no great leap to see how short-endurance, low-observable electric drones could be a market slice. Just look what’s going on in Ukraine at the moment. Pipistrel has for several years been developing commercial cargo UAVs.

Pipistrel’s technological prowess is more than up to this kind of work. Moreover, if Textron does want a position in manned electric aircraft, they just bought the world leader in the field. As I reported in my flight report video on the Velis Electro, that airplane isn’t quite ready for prime time in the U.S. but it’s a worthy start. In some ways, given the limitations of current batteries, it really shouldn’t exist at all. But through sheer force of will and creative engineering, Pipistrel’s founder, Ivo Boscarol, brought the thing to market. Despite its limitations, no one else is even close.

So what’s in it for Pipistrel? For Ivo Boscarol, a big check. No price was given for the acquisition, but if two to four times revenue is a good gouge, the buy is in the $80 to $150 million range. Boscarol will remain a minority shareholder although his title of chairman emeritus suggests a diminished role. That may or may not be a good thing, for much of the company’s creative impetus flowed from him. Slovenia does well with its primary and advanced education and the company is staffed with exceptionally capable people. Textron should be impressed. It should also be impressed with the new factory the company built just across the Italian border at Goriza in the Julian Alps foothills. Lovely place.

Textron has pledged to funnel money into Pipistrel for developmental work. I’m not sure what impact that will have on electric airplanes because Pipistrel has already done remarkably well with what it has. As noted, the Velis is impressive, hobbled mainly by battery limitations. That research will be driven not by aviation, but by the laptop and electric car segments; aviation is the rump. Also, it’s not clear to me that the Velis isn’t a developmental dead end. I think it’s too quirky, small and light to become a mainstream trainer, at least in the U.S. market. But the electric propulsion might find a home in what comes next.

I asked a couple of people in the institutional training world if the association with Textron would cause the big schools to give Pipistrel a second look. They thought it would. And anyway, the Embry-Riddles and UNDs aren’t the only schools out there. Smaller ones may warm up to at least initial buys of electric airplanes with Textron backing up the deal. Pipistrel would need to improve its factory support. Customers consistently complain about this to us.

Perhaps Textron funds might finance completion of the Panthera certification in the U.S. Right now, it’s being sold as an experimental which, in my view, makes no marketing sense. Fully certified, it would find North American buyers, although I don’t know if sales would justify the certification costs. Maybe. It would need a strong, thoughtful sales effort of the sort Cessna never gave the Corvallis and later the TTx.

Now, the question is, can Textron keep the bean counters far enough away from Pipistrel to avoid the Columbia’s fate? An insider involved in that transition told me the two company cultures were just too different and when Cessna moved it to Wichita, the whole thing just slowly sunk. Textron is famously profit oriented and the divisions are expected to “make their quarterly numbers.” I’m not sure how that will work if it’s applied to Pipistrel. The best outcome might be if the mother company uses it as technology incubator and lets the numbers run where they may. I know, radical idea, right?

I’ve known Ivo Boscarol for about 10 years and during that time, I’ve come to understand how much Pipistrel embodies his unique vision and devotion to what we’ve come to call sustainable aviation. Five years ago, we called it green. This development thus caught me by surprise because I thought he would never sell it. But then I thought the same thing of Christian Dries, who occupied a similar position as founder of Diamond Aircraft before selling it to Chinese interests. But in aviation, as in life as a whole, nothing is forever.

By the way, closing the circle here, I don’t really think skydivers will never routinely jump from electric airplanes. But it’s going to be a long, long time.

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25 COMMENTS

  1. When their batteries run dry over hostile terrain, pilots-cum-skydivers with forethought will abandon their birds, in flight. 😉

    • As an investor, I would think that Textron would be more interested in Military Drones than in e-flight-trainers. The knee-jerk hype over them from the “institutional training world” will fade.

  2. In the world where I suspect most AVweb readers live, little fish, from FBOs to MROs usually provide us the best and most affordable products and services. So when big fish gobble up little fish it stinks. Within the span of less than one month DC Capital Partners who couldn’t give a schichtt less about aviation buys uAvionix and Textron marries, ahem, gobbles Pipistrel. Recognizing that it is springtime, and, not that Pipistrel products were ever in my future, I’m smelling more than the usual skunk that vernal equinox annually serves up. That’s being unkind to the skunk who nests her young underneath my driveway every spring. At least she and we understand each other and coexist.

  3. Photo Opps are big lobby leverage. When the government buys their next dozen “Textron” King Airs and Citations all the politicians and CEOs will stand in front of a “Textron Sustainable Aircraft” as they pat each other on the back. The social media voter will melt at the feet of these fabulous ‘Sustainable’ climate friendly celebrities as they print and spend money like the drunken politicians they are. The purchase of Pipistrel for a $100 million is cheap propaganda when it sells a couple billion in military contracts. Textron is the next Tesla Meme Stock as they build the next ‘Sustainable’ Hunter/Killer Drone with carbon credits.

    • One does suspect this is 90% greenwashing, 9% hedging, and 1% product. It will be interesting to see if they kill the trainer line or market the heck out of it, at least in Europe. The Panthera is an interesting addition to their line. Hopefully Textron will spend the money to get it certified. Since they sold the same number of Bonanza’s and Baron’s that I did in 2021 – zero – it might give them a plane people want to buy.

  4. I’m usually trying to be a glass half full guy. However, there are two issues at play

    1) this is aviation. Expensive and fickle. Companies need to get it right

    2) it’s always a challenge for established companies to purchase startups and bottle the lightning. The reason some startups are successful is that they don’t have bureaucracy, excess capital, and resources in general to slow them down. They make do with who and what they have at their disposal.

    Acquiring companies typically can’t leave well enough alone and end up tanking the acquired company. And no one gets fired for it, so there is no deterrent to monkeying around.

    But time will tell if this goes the way of the Columbia or not.

  5. I would suggest that this move reflects Textron’s desire to leverage Pipistril’s technology for future military drone programs, particular ones with electric propulsion which has the potential advantage of being very quiet

    If you are a glass half full type then this could mean that advancements in support of military drone aircraft will filter down to the GA world and kick start a new generation of practical electric light aircraft

    If you are the glass half empty type then this could mean that interest in further developing future electric light aircraft quickly goes away in favor of all development funding going to military programs

    The founder of Pipiistril is a light airplane geek so I doubt he wants to see his GA aircraft disappear, but a lot will depend on the contours of the deal he signed with Textron.

  6. Almost 3 days after publication and only seven comments to Paul’s blog. What gives? OH … Textron eats still another startup … yawn!

  7. Completely baffled why you think electric aircraft will ‘never’ be used for skydiving.

    Your attitude reminds me so much of what all the legacy car-makers said about Tesla. They, like you it seems, are so arrogant in your cosy little bubbles that you simply cannot imagine anything being different. It is mind-bogglingly frustrating and annoying in equal measure.

    What’s worse, you can’t even be bothered to come up wth a single shred of evidence to support your view. By contrast I’ll offer you indisputable and very good reasons why *I* think electric aircraft will ‘very quickly’ be used for sky-diving; 1/ the trips are extremely short and 2/ electric aircraft are very cheap to run.

    • To be fair, Paul ended his article by writing he doesn’t think it will never happen, but it will take a long, long time.

      I’ll dispute one of your “indisputable” reasons. Skydiving trips are short on distance but not short on time. A climb to jump altitude might take 10 to 15 minutes at full power. The best endurance for current electric aircraft I’m aware of is “up to 1 hour”. To achieve the 1-hour endurance, much of the flying time has to be at reduced power. Let’s assume the full power endurance is half or 30 minutes (I may be optimistic). That means 2 to 3 jump runs on a charge after which the aircraft will be on the ground for 2 hours to recharge.
      That is not practical for an active skydiving facility that performs multiple jump runs and cycles jump loads as quickly as possible.

      The currently available electric aircraft are 2-place with a payload of around 400 pounds. That’s not adequate for skydiving. A larger aircraft that can carry more weight will require larger batteries which, in turn, means longer recharge times.

      It will take a long, long time for electric aircraft to meet the demands for use in skydiving operations.

      Electric airplanes do have the advantage of shorter time to the ground after jumpers away as they are not limited in descent rate by concerns of shock cooling an internal combustion engine.

    • I didn’t provide the math for that, but perhaps if you had, you wouldn’t be in a bubble of your own concerning imaginary electric aircraft performance.

      Let’s the take the Magni500 experimental electric Caravan, which could theoretically carry skydivers. But it definitely does carry 2000 pounds of batteries. Literally, a ton. It nominally has a range of 100 miles with five passengers. Generally, electric airplanes have antagonistic design requirements. They need batteries with good energy density, but the ones that have that are often constrained by the other requirement: power density. A skydiving airplane spends all its time climbing hard, which asks the most of batteries and, at least so far, impinges on their longevity. Let’s not even talk about a twin, which would be worse.

      Cycle recharge time is 30 to 40 minutes, but that likely requires three-phase power, a considerable expense. With that energy density (probably around 200 wh/kg at the pack level), the airplane can carry maybe 8 to altitude, less than half what the hydrocarbon version does. It will likely cost more than twice as much as the hydrocarbon version with unknown battery longevity. Skydiving and utility airplanes tend to be older airframes as the end of their prime commercial use, thus they are cheap. Electric Caravans will be anything but.

      Bottom line: I can see how the economics might eventually tilt toward practicality, but not for a long time. If I were betting, I’d say not in this decade. And I’m talking about not a technology demonstration, but widely deployed.

      • How dare you espouse reality in your blog, Paul? Why aren’t you an electrification acolyte? We only have — what is it now, well under 10 years? — to save the planet?

        People who think that electrification of everything is some sort of magical panacea completely ignore the physical reality (read limitations) of the idea AT THIS TIME.

        Energy and power density … who cares? Just put in more batteries. To an even greater extent than autos or trucks which don’t require any energy when not in motion if they fail, an airplane HAS to keep moving to provide lift. And, unlike a liquid fueled vehicle which get lighter as the stored energy is consumed, battery powered anythings don’t have that luxury. Even ignoring the thermal and weight efficiency an electrical motor offers over an internal combustion engine, the problem is in the energy storage solutions to power same. At THIS time, the battery technologies that exist aren’t up to the task. And THAT was your (correct) premise.

        Beyond the energy storage weight and volume problem is … where is all the generation capacity for them going to come from … our Nation’s electrical generation capacity is operating at near peak as it is. Unless we start building nuclear generating plants, the idea of switching to electric vehicles completely ignores reality. I got into an argument with an electric car fanatic a few weeks ago; when I said we’d need nuclear power to charge all those potential vehicles, his head exploded.

        I studied your e-Pipistrel electro video in depth a few weeks ago. To get a 22 minute flight, that thing is lugging around two 11 kwh batteries weighing 162 lb each. Using the conversion factor of 33.7 kwh/gal (and times 0.3 for thermal inefficiency), that’s the same as <2 gals of gas which weighs 12 lbs. The gas powered version has a 5+30 hour endurance. THAT's progress? Give us a break, electric power fanatics.

        You made your case to me in that Pipistrel video. Others ought to study it, too. "imaginary electric aircraft performance" … indeed.

  8. Why don’t we see a move into electric self-launching gliders?

    Locally, I see the logistics involed in glider ops. Got to schedule the Pawnee and tow pilot. That schedule has to match up with the glider instructors scheduled. Then of course you must pay for the Pawnee, tow pilot and glider instructor.

    Throw in a 2 hour weather slide or the Pawnee goes down and you’re back to square one.

    If it’s a winch tow, that’s a very specialized piece of gear and airport specific. (Even the Pawnee can make a few bucks for a banner tow).

    On average, how many pulls per training session or a good day of glider flying? 3 maybe 4 pulls? 5 max? I dunno.

    Can an electric self-launched glider make 5 pulls to altitude without charging in between?

  9. As a Columbia (Cessna 400 but ATC still recognizes it as Columbia) 400 owner I have loved my plane for 10+ years. Always a disappointment that Cessna never paid any attention, while Cirrus marketing the heck out of their planes. Maybe the difference with Pipistrel is not so much the profit per manufacturing space that the Columbia and Sky Catcher reportedly lacked, but rather the fact that the Jack Pelton name isn’t associated with this newly purchased airplane!

  10. I have doubts that the practical, nimble staff at Pipistrel will respond well to ownership/management style of Textron. Boscarol is receiving salary – for now – but I believe we’ll see him and many Pipistrel alums in another light aviation venture in the not-so-distant future.

  11. You caused me to go back and rewatch your Velis Flight Trial video and take copious notes. You did a fine job of comparing the Velis electric to the Virus Rotax powered airplane. I enjoyed it.

    With 25 (std full fuel) gal aboard the Virus, two 404 pounders can be accommodated. Aboard the Velis, GW – EW = 379 pounds of people. Looks to me if the Virus tanks could carry those 25 lbs, the diff in fuel would be near another hour of endurance more at 6.5 hours. The Velis, by comparison, with it’s 22-24 min endurance is ~8% of that. And THEN, you have to wait 2 hours for it to recharge itself from its onboard charger for 230 vac. And — oh by the way — it’s also carrying an aux avionics battery and dc-dc charger weight eating into useful load on top of the onboard charger.

    The whole idea IS preposterous as far as an airplane occupied by humans for recreational or training flight. If Textron is buying it for that … they’re out of their minds. If they’re buying Pipistrel to make drones … maybe. But if I had to wait 2 hrs min to recharge / rearm a drone … that’s too long. And if they’re buying it for the technology, there are cheaper ways to go there. IMHO, this is little more than an effort to be able to claim “green” kudos OR a way to make money in aviation … you know, to make a million … start with two million.

    Two last points. If you only have a 43% battery burn down time until you run up against the min reserve energy wall and the ‘harm the batteries’ point, you’re returning w/ > 50% battery energy unused. Geesh! And the full span flap stall issue coupled with the full power torque roll tendencies are not things a student should have to face. Me thinks we have another American Aviation Yankee trying to be another 150 here.

    I urge everyone here to go back and watch your Jan 20, 2022 22+ minute video at:
    avweb.com/uncategorized/pipistrel-velis-flight-trial-cool-airplane-not-for-u-s-market

    • correction … I meant to say that the Virus could carry two people weighing 404 lbs vs two people weighing 379 pounds for the Velis.

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