As it unveils its latest Prime Xplorer light sport variant at Aero Friedrichshafen this week, Italian aircraft developer Blackshape is poised for further improvements to its line up and a major push into the lucrative US market.
It follows the arrival of new chief executive Niccolo Chierroni, whose strategy for the 14-year-old company – based in Monopoli on the country’s southern Adriatic coast – includes upping output to two aircraft a month by the start of 2026.
Chierroni says the taildragger Xplorer is a response to feedback from stateside customers following the appointment of its first dealer there last year. “This is an aircraft that the [US] market was asking for,” says the former Alenia Aermacchi (now Leonardo) executive, who joined Blackshape in July 2023 after seven years in various strategic roles at majority shareholder Angel Holding.
Like Blackshape’s other two products, the original Prime Veloce from 2011 and larger Gabriel BK160-200 single piston trainer, which was introduced in 2016, the Xplorer combines “manufacturing excellence” and “the sophistication of Italian design” to “deliver an engaging flight experience”, he says.
Blackshape has shipped more than 80 Primes and around 20 Gabriels since that aircraft received its European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification in 2019, following that with US approval in 2024. However, earlier ambitions to ramp up production faster were hampered by the impact of the pandemic on the training and leisure sectors. A short-lived grounding of both types by EASA last year following two fatal accidents was another hitch.
Now, with a new focus on manufacturing and product improvement, Chierroni insists the business is back on track with an ambition to be “at the top of both our segments”. This includes establishing the tandem-seat, all-carbon Gabriel as a go-to type for both commercial and military introductory flight training.
“We are in negotiations with customers worldwide and are confident of receiving dozens of [Gabriel] orders this year. Our main target is flying schools but the military market is a huge area for us. There are lots of air forces looking for a platform with good teach effectiveness but at an affordable price,” he says.
Blackshape’s first product was the Prime, a low-wing, two-seat ultralight, powered by the 75kW (100hp) Rotax 912 or the larger 86kW Rotax 914, and certificated in 2012. Most of the operators are recreational pilots. However, the lure of then fast-growing business-to-business professional training market prompted the company to develop the Lycoming IO-320- or Rotax 916-powered Gabriel, which was officially revealed at Aero Friedrichshafen in 2017.
The 9m (29ft)-wingspan aircraft has retractable landing gear and comes with an Aspen Avionics Evolution 1000 or Garmin G3X Touch glass cockpit. It is capable of a maximum level speed of 164kt (304km/h). The Lycoming version comes with Hartzell propellers, while the Rotax engine, designed to run on mogas or automotive unleaded petrol, uses ones from MT Propeller.
In November, Blackshape displayed the Gabriel at the Air Expo in Abu Dhabi for the first time, flying it roughly 2,160nm (4,000km) from southern Italy to the United Arab Emirates as a “real-world demonstration of the aircraft’s reliability and long-distance performance”.
Last June, the company achieved another milestone with US certification of the Gabriel – and began shipping the first examples at the end of the year. In October, it announced its first US distributor, Sheridan, Indiana-based maintenance, repair and overhaul specialist BravoFox, which has taken delivery of a Prime demonstrator. Blackshape also plans to open an American legal subsidiary and appoint more dealers worldwide. “We want to create a global network,” says Chierroni.
On the product front, Blackshape plans a more powerful version of the Prime, with a Rotax 915 engine. It also plans to cooperate with Italian propulsion company CMD on a hybrid-electric version of the aircraft. The business, based near Naples, is exhibiting alongside Blackshape at Aero this week.
The recent addition of an alternative Rotax engine on the Gabriel, capable of running on conventional mogas, is also helping to “open many doors” in markets such as Africa, India and Turkey where – unlike the USA – avgas is in short supply, says Chierroni.
There have been bumps along the way. In March last year, just as Blackshape was preparing for Aero and just months into Chierroni’s spell in charge, came the shock news that European regulators were grounding both aircraft following an in-flight break up of a Gabriel in Malaysia a month earlier.
The precautionary measure was lifted in June after a finding by the authorities in Kuala Lumpur that the aircraft had possibly been operated beyond its certified envelope, and that a structural wing failure was not a factor. Describing the grounding as “exceedingly conservative”, Blackshape said at the time that it would have a “negative impact on the company’s business which is in a strong phase of relaunch and international positioning”.
With the focus now firmly back on product, other developments Blackshape is considering include a redesigned bubble canopy for the Gabriel, which reflects the fact that the average pilot is becoming taller. Another step involves designing an aerobatic version of the aircraft, powered by a turboprop engine, which would make the Gabriel “relevant to the very top air forces”, says Chierroni, who is targeting potential certification within three years.
More radical still is a proposal to develop a side-by-side cockpit configuration for the type, which Chierroni admits would be “a completely new design, almost an entirely new aircraft”. However, he insists the project is feasible: “We have the product in sight.”
The company is also considering moving its factory in Monopoli – where it is on an industrial park and not near an airport – to Grottaglie, one hour’s drive away, where it carries out flight testing. It would still be part of the Apulian aerospace cluster, which the company describes as providing a pool of “highly qualified companies and certified suppliers, ensuring seamless integration into a network of knowledge and expertise”.
However, with more than 100 Blackshape aircraft now in service, and that tally set to grow fast, possibly the most pressing priority for the company is a more comprehensive maintenance network. “We really do need more active aftersales support,” says Chierroni. “And it needs to be as close as possible to the customer.”
