Aircraft
New and improved PiperJet morphs into Piper Altaire
Piper Aircraft today is introducing its evolved and renamed PiperJet Altaire, showing a mockup of the redesigned fuselage and cabin interior and describing
The newly named Piper Altaire has abandoned the original proof-of-concept Meridian fuselage in favor of a taller and wider body, which the company says is scalable for future generations.
The newly named Piper Altaire has abandoned the original proof-of-concept Meridian fuselage in favor of a taller and wider body, which the company says is scalable for future generations.

Piper Aircraft today is introducing its evolved and renamed PiperJet Altaire, showing a mockup of the redesigned fuselage and cabin interior and describing the aircraft as "the next step" in the evolution of its single-engine very light jet program.

The PiperJet Altaire is based on the proof-of-concept PiperJet, which has been flying since 2008. That airplane uses the fuselage of the single-engine turboprop Meridian and, according to Piper, this fuselage did not lend itself to the company's long-range plans for scaled-up future generations.