AIRCRAFT SALES / Turboprop Trends Turboprop comeback Simple economics have revived the business case for turboprop aircraft, and manufacturers are responding with more upgrades and greater choice to attract buyers. By LeRoy Cook fter years of predicting the demise of turboprop aircraft production, ostensibly because propellers were so, so passé and jets were so very cool, the predictors have been proven wrong. According to 2016 annual figures from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), turboprop deliver- ies rose by 3.4 per cent while jet produc- tion was actually down by 7.9 per cent last year. A total of 576 new turboprops was A 58 SKIES Magazine | March/April 2017 delivered in 2016, representing an increase from 557 deliveries in 2015. There are a lot of reasons for this resurgence, but most of them relate to simple economics. It’s cheaper to own and fly a turbine airplane equipped with propellers, and the operat- ing requirements are simpler. Looking abroad, we can anticipate growth in the use of single-engine turboprops in European countries. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has joined the rest of the world in allowing commercial operation of single-engine turbine aircraft. This move is not expected to take business away from jet charter companies, but rather to open up new markets that had previously found jets too expensive. The turboprop market can be divided into three categories: twin-engine; single-engine pressurized; and single-engine utility. Turboprop twins have, for decades, been defined as “King Airs and others.” Beechcraft (now Textron Aviation) has