Blackshape to reshape access to the third dimension

The Italian aircraft manufacturer, Blackshape, unveils its roadmap for a contemporary access to aviation, completely data-driven, focused on airmanship and incredible flying experiences.

April 27^th, 2022, Friedrichshafen – Blackshape, the Italian aerospace company, part of the Angel Holding, will exhibit at “AERO Friedrichshafen 2022” following a streak of successes in delivering its industrial plan.

Blackshape will showcase the new BK160TR during the show at the company’s booth A4-105Blackshape’s vision aims to grant access to the third dimension for a larger customer base, including recreational flights for non-pilots, with an inclusive, unique and sustainable experience.

Blackshape will showcase the new BK160-TR at the company’s booth A4-105. AERO 2022 is the first opportunity for European customers to see the BK160-TR. The Bk160-TR is the first civil aircraft specifically conceived for pilot training since several decades and the first ever to fully enable a data-driven competence based training.

The Bk160-TR is a key part of Blackshape’s vision to grant access to the third dimension for a larger customer base, including recreational flights for non-pilots, with an inclusive, unique and sustainable experience.

“Aviation often suffers for being excessively conservative. The majority of training aircraft are about 50 years old, and even when there’s access to a newer platform, the training philosophy remains outdated”, says Luciano Belviso, CEO and founder of Blackshape. “In the past years we have worked hard to define a new path to introduce cadets to their careers with a broader, holistic approach. By focusing on their actual airmanship once they complete the training, rather than the number of hours they’ve flown – similar to military training organizations. After some proven experiences, including the Airline Pilot Program of Transavia Airlines, a subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, we have demonstrated that our vision is possible and by far more attractive for cadets, training organizations and operators.
We concentrated all our philosophy into the Bk160-TR to set safer, less expensive and more effective training standards for operators, and give wings to an entire new generation of pilots.”

During the exhibition Blackshape will also showcase the Blackshape Prime BS100-915 featuring the most powerful Rotax aviation engine, the 915iS (141 HP), to pursue further the “Enjoyment of flying” philosophy for recreational flights concentrating on the unparalleled controls precision, the astonishing rate of climb and overall performances of the aircraft.

Blackshape is rapidly expanding its commercial presence over the world (18 countries and counting, in Europe, USA, Asia and Africa).

Blackshape successfully completes the first phase of Ocean2020 sea demonstration, as Europe’s Largest Defence Research project for maritime surveillance ramps up

Coordinated by the Italian Navy, the first Sea demonstration aimed to evaluate how manned and unmanned systems can help respond to the challenges of maritime surveillance, as well as assessing European interoperability.

Blackshape successfully completed the first phase of OCEAN2020 sea demonstration, the largest EU funded defence research project for maritime surveillance, led by Leonardo. Coordinated by the Italian Navy, the first sea demonstration took place in the Gulf of Taranto and involved different space, naval, ground assets and remotely piloted systems, together with the Maritime Operation Centers (MOC) from Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal and the EU MOC prototype installed in the European Defence Agency.

The mission was focused on two scenarios: Fast Boat Interdiction (Intercept and neutralize a fast & light weaponized boat) and Interception of a Mine Laying Threat during an Amphibious Operation. Blackshape carried out its operations using a BK-ISP, an innovative aerial platform with OPV (Optionally Piloted Vehicle) capabilities. This configuration allows to perform specific intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance manned and un-manned missions, and with the ability to transfer data in real-time. The BK-ISP integrates different payloads (EO/IR, Radar) in two role-fit wing pods.

“We’re proud for the achievement in this initiative which set, for the first time, a European-level and result-oriented defense strategy”, said Luciano Belviso, CEO of Blackshape, “In different scenarios, we demonstrated our system can substantially increase situational awareness and homeland security, with a cost-effective hassle-free value proposition, while we keep developing our technologies in the field of remotely- and autonomous-piloting, moving one further step ahead towards their commercial exploitation”

During the demo, BK-ISP (Blackshape OPV platform) has shown its capability of detection and identification of sea objectives, providing augmented situational awareness to the Italian Maritime Operations Centre (IT-MOC), headquarter of the Naval Squad Command (CINCNAV).

Throughout the operation, Blackshape has successfully demonstrated how remotely-piloted fixed wing, prop driven vehicles can support surveillance and interdiction operations at-sea, within the interoperability capabilities at a European level.

BLACKSHAPE S.P.A.

Blackshape, headquartered in Monopoli, Italy, is a company part of the Angel Group. Blackshape is a global player for high performing full composites general aviation and training aircraft, providing agile turn-key solutions to private and institutional customers. In the last five years, Blackshape has become an established player in the aviation industry by consolidating strong growth in terms of turnover, employees and markets. The company has a robust footprint in the recreational market thanks to the Blackshape Prime, an aircraft that combines unparalleled flying qualities and performances with picky attention to detail, currently operated in 18 countries.

The robust knowledge and technology within Blackshape resulted in record development time of the Blackshape BK 160 Gabriél program, a general aviation aircraft, specifically designed to answer all increasing need of training. Recent agreements for such program include partnerships with Boeing Global Services, the “Experimental Flight Department” of the Italian Air Force, airlines and large training organizations, including most recently the flight academy of Transavia, the low-cost carrier part of the Airfrance-KLM group.

The Bk-ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) is the latest development from the company, designed specifically for tactical surveillance and patrolling.

OCEAN2020

OCEAN2020 (Open Cooperation for European mAritime awareNess), is funded by the European Union (EU Preparatory Action on Defense Research) through grant n. 801697 and implemented by the European Defence Agency (EDA). It has the main objective to demonstrate enhanced situational awareness in a maritime environment through the integration of legacy and new technologies for unmanned systems, and ISTAR payloads, by pulling together the technical specialists in the maritime domain covering the “observing, orienting, deciding and acting” operational tasks.  

Coordinated by Leonardo, the team involving 42 entities is drawn from 15 countries across Europe.

Blackshape Contacts
Antonio Amendolagine
Marketing Manager
Mobile: +39 334 841 84 96
antonio.amendolagine@angelcompany.com

Ilaria Trapuzzano
Public Relations Manager
Mobile: +39 340 316 63 20
Ilaria.Trapuzzano@angelcompany.com

Transavia, Blackshape announce agreement for pilot training program

Agreement includes initial and recurrent training for the Transavia cadet program

Friedrichshafen, Germany – 11 April 2019 – Blackshape and Transavia have agreed on a cooperative and exclusive teaming relationship in order to apply their complimentary capabilities to make the most effective initial and recurrent training of Transavia pilots, with their respective products and knowledges. On March 28th 2019 Transavia started its own initial pilot training program. The program leverages also the partnership with Zelf Vliegen, an approved Training Organization based in Lelystad.

The Blackshape Gabriel 160 will be used during the basic flying training, the so called core phase of the Transavia MPL-course. A part of the core phase includes basic Upset Prevention and Recovery Training (UPRT). Transavia selected the Blackshape Basic Trainer and started a strategic partnership with Blackshape for it is innovative character and drive to evolve on the training system. The companies’ current agreement include also the use of eAircraft software from Boeing Global Services which supports the development of evidence based training. Companies collect and analyses training data aiming to increase the effectiveness of the initial pilot training.

ABOUT BLACKSHAPE
Blackshape, headquartered in Italy, is a company part of the Angel Group. Blackshape is globally recognized for high performances full composites light sport and general aviation aircraft and for proprietary cutting-edge training solutions aimed to enhance teaching effectiveness for both private and institutional customers. Blackshape aircraft are operated in 20 countries and counting, and the footprint includes recreational, training organization, institutional operators. Angel Group is the largest privately-owned hi-tech group in Italy, with subsidiaries in 18 countries, leads a group of pioneering companies which are global leaders and technology innovators in delivering end-to-end solutions to railway, space, aviation, motorsport and IoT sectors, with product and services in use in 62 countries worldwide.

ABOUT TRANSAVIA
Transavia, part of the AIR FRANCE KLM Group, is the leading budget airline and the second largest airline in terms of size in the Netherlands. The airline has operated scheduled and charter flights to more than 110 destinations, primarily in Europe and North Africa, for over 50 years. It is the most accessible budget airline in Europe and is leading the way in hospitality, service and digital services. Transavia offers an attractive basic ticket fare for both leisure and business travelers with additional optional (paid) products and services.
Transavia carries more than 15 million passengers a year and operates with a modern fleet. Transavia operates flights from six bases in Europe: from the Netherlands from Amsterdam, Rotterdam/The Hague and Eindhoven. From France, it flies from Paris, Nantes and Lyon.

Blackshape Gabriél awarded as the best aircraft in the aerokurier innovation Award

At the Innovation Award, readers of aerokurier select the most innovative brands and aircraft in ten categories at AERO every year. On Wednesday evening, the winners were solemnly announced.

The Gabriél, General Aviation aircraft, has been awarded as the most innovative aircraft with 35% of the total preferences.

Great satisfaction was expressed by the head of the company, in particular by the CEOs and Founders Luciano Belviso and Angelo Petrosillo: “It is an honor to have our most advanced aircraft, the Gabriél, recognized this way by the greater public. We worked with dedication with all the team to develop an extremely versatile aircraft: the aim was exactly to design and manufacture the most innovative and beautiful aircraft for private pilots and also to position it as the cornerstone within civil training programs, like the one just started with Transavia.”

The Innovation Award by Aerokurier has long been a solid institution in the industry: this year, 3,640 Aerokurier readers voted for their favorite products. This is significantly more than in the previous year: in 2018, 2,778 people had participated in the readers’ poll.