Italian aircraft manufacturer Blackshape has officially entered the US market, with the debut of its new BK160 and BK160-TR training aircraft at the 2021 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh.
“We had an excellent experience both with our family of private customers and with multiple Ivy League aviation training stakeholders, including airlines (Transavia, part of the Airfrance-KLM group is one of our customers) and military training organizations,” said Luciano Belviso, Blackshape CEO.
According to company officials, the new aircraft are purpose-built for training.
This is a complex aircraft that I suspect is more positioned as a military trainer, especially with the tandem seats, center stick and left side controls.
I would think that they’d use a 210 hp engine option so it would be high performance too.
Looks like a small rudder. As far as I can determine it’s not aerobatic and spins are prohibited. So it’s a basic trainer? A tandem configuration is less than ideal for basic training aircraft.
Hmmm … Just like my Cessna 150C (yeah, right) which happened to train more real pilots than any other aircraft …
Competition drives progress. FAA regs too often styful progress.