Diamond Aircraft flew its DART-750 military trainer test article for the first time on June 12 and, as expected, all went well. The longish thin-winged hot rod sports a 750-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-25C and is billed as an aerobatic trainer by the company. Diamond test pilots Soren Pedersen and Niko Daroussis flew the plane for 30 minutes and "covered all basic maneuvers including performance and handling checks."
Good luck, it is a crowded market already. One big selling point will be if it is significantly quieter than the others – I live not too far from a training air field and you hear the Pilatus craft they use minutes before you see them and they drown out everything when they go over.
The airport has been there for years, and used to have fighter jets, but locals say they were less noise than this lot and what are you going to do about it?
Air Force is reluctant to change props, so training areas are now very spread out…