WICHITA, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 6, 2026--
Textron Aviation Inc., a Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) company, today announced Brazos Valley Flight Services, Executive Air Taxi Corporation, Fairmont State University, Sterling Flight Training and Victors Aviation as its 2026 Top Hawk program recipients, continuing a legacy that has placed 55 factory-new Cessna Skyhawks in training environments since the program launched in 2015.
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Now entering its second decade, Top Hawk is one of the industry’s longest‑running manufacturer‑school partnerships. Designed to support aviation workforce development, the program loans custom‑branded, factory‑new Skyhawks to selected organizations for one year, giving students access to the world’s most popular training aircraft and helping schools modernize their fleets with advanced avionics and safety features.
“Top Hawk has grown into a powerful engine for pilot development,” said Chris Crow, vice president, Piston & Utility Sales. “These organizations demonstrate strong student engagement, high training utilization and a commitment to growing the next generation of aviators. More than 1,000 students have already trained in Top Hawk aircraft over the past decade, and this year’s class will build on that impact.”
Program fuels national pilot pipeline
Top Hawk was created to help aviation schools meet rising pilot demand and to expand access to modern training aircraft. Industry forecasts have projected a need for more than 200,000 new pilots over the coming decade, strengthening demand for high‑quality training equipment and advanced cockpit technology.
Each Top Hawk aircraft is typically the most utilized plane in a school’s fleet during its year of service. Early program recipients logged more than 1,300 flight hours in less than a year, demonstrating how heavily the aircraft are used in collegiate and commercial training missions.
Beyond training, schools often use their Top Hawk aircraft for community outreach, including discovery flights, airshow appearances and youth aviation days that expose thousands of young people to flight each year.
A decade of results
Since 2015, the Top Hawk program has delivered measurable benefits to participating universities, flight schools and training centers across the United States and abroad:
About the Cessna Skyhawk
The Cessna Skyhawk is considered the aircraft of choice for pilot training, and it is the most popular single-engine aircraft in aviation history. Since the aircraft first took flight in 1955, over 45,000 Skyhawks have been delivered to customers around the world – more than any other aircraft in the industry. The single-engine four-seat, high-wing Skyhawk is renowned for offering the best combination of modern features, including the Garmin G1000 NXi avionics with wireless connectivity, a standard angle-of-attack display system, and proven dependability. The aircraft also features a McCauley Propeller Systems aluminum fixed pitch propeller. Learn more about the Cessna Skyhawk at cessna.txtav.com.
About Textron Aviation Inc.
We have been inspiring the journey of flight for nearly 100 years. Textron Aviation Inc., a Textron Inc. company, has empowered our collective talent across the Beechcraft, Cessna, Hawker and Pipistrel brands to design and deliver the best aviation experience for our customers. With a range that includes everything from business jets, turboprops, light and high-performance pistons, to special mission, military trainer and defense aircraft, Textron Aviation has the most versatile and comprehensive aviation product portfolio in the world and a workforce that has produced more than half of all general aviation aircraft worldwide. Customers in more than 170 countries rely on our legendary performance, reliability and versatility, along with our trusted global customer service network, for affordable, productive and flexible flight. For more information, visit www.txtav.com.
About Textron
Textron Inc. is a multi-industry company that leverages its global network of aircraft, defense, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell, Cessna, Beechcraft, Pipistrel, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, and Textron Systems. For more information, visit: www.textron.com.
Certain statements in this press release may project revenues or describe strategies, goals, outlook or other non-historical matters; these forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update them. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Factory-new Cessna Skyhawks (Model 172) to take flight as Textron Aviation names five 2026 Top Hawk recipients—helping train the next generation of pilots
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency says Tehran has rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and wants a permanent end to the war.
The report comes shortly before U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline for Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or see its power plants and bridges attacked.
The news agency said Iran had conveyed its response to the U.S. through Pakistan.
“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press on Monday. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”
On the Strait of Hormuz, Ferdousi Pour said Iranian and Omani officials were working on a mechanism for administrating the shipping chokepoint.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Israel struck a key petrochemical plant at Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field and killed two paramilitary Revolutionary Guard commanders on Monday, potentially challenging a new 45-day ceasefire proposal for Tehran and the United States as President Donald Trump's ultimatum looms within hours.
The gas field attack aimed at eliminating a major source of revenue for Iran, Israel said. The field is critical to electricity production, but the strike appeared to be separate from Trump’s threats to target power plants and bridges if Tehran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic by Monday night Washington time.
Iran’s grip on the strait has caused oil prices to surge and shaken the world economy.
Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz called the plant Iran's largest petrochemical facility. The gas field shared with Qatar is the world’s largest. Iranian state media blamed the U.S. and Israel for the attack.
The White House did not immediately comment, though Trump was set to speak to journalists Monday afternoon in his first public appearance since Wednesday. He had been relatively quiet during the rescue of downed U.S. aviators in Iran.
After Israel’s attack on South Pars in March, Trump said Israel would not attack it again but warned that if Iran continued striking Qatar’s energy infrastructure, the United States would “massively blow up" the field.
Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators have sent Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff a proposal calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the strait, two Mideast officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told journalists that messages are being exchanged with mediators but “negotiations are entirely incompatible with ultimatums, crimes and threats of war crimes.”
In Islamabad, two senior officials said Pakistan’s ceasefire efforts are at an advanced stage but “several spoilers and detractors” are trying to sow confusion. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the talks.
Meanwhile, explosions boomed in Tehran and low-flying jets could be heard for hours.
Among those killed was the head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, according to Iranian state media and Israel’s defense minister. Israel said it also killed the leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s undercover unit in its expeditionary Quds Force, Asghar Bakeri.
Israel’s defense minister vowed to keep targeting top-ranking officials. “We will continue to hunt them down one by one," Katz said.
Israel’s military later said it struck three Tehran airports overnight — Bahram, Mehrabad and Azmayesh — hitting dozens of helicopters and aircraft it said belonged to the Iranian Air Force.
A Tehran resident said “constantly there is the sound of bombs, air defenses, drones," speaking on condition of anonymity for her safety. At least one recent attack hit near her home, waking her, she said.
Separately, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia activated air defenses to intercept Iranian missiles and drones. Tehran has kept up pressure on Gulf neighbors, which has included strikes against infrastructure like oil fields. In Israel, Iranian missiles hit the northern city of Haifa, where four people from one family were found dead in the rubble of a residential building.
Iran’s attacks on regional energy infrastructure and its hold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime, have sent global energy prices soaring.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose to $109 in early Monday spot trading, about 50% higher than when the war started, then wavered. U.S. stocks were mostly holding steady.
Under pressure at home as consumers worry, Trump has warned Iran that if no deal is reached to reopen the strait, the U.S. would hit power plants and other infrastructure and set the country “back to the stone ages.”
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” he threatened Sunday.
Trump has given multiple deadlines to Iran and the could expire Monday night Washington time — though he also posted: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” without elaborating.
Former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayatir urged Arab countries to discourage Trump from striking power plants, warning on social media that the entire region would go “dark” if that happens.
Following Trump’s expletive-laced post Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf called threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure “reckless.”
Iran has let some vessels through the strait since the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, but none belong to those countries or ones perceived as helping them. Some have paid Iran for passage but the flow of traffic is down more than 90% over the same period last year.
Thick smoke rose near Tehran’s Azadi Square after an airstrike hit the grounds of the Sharif University of Technology. Multiple countries have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Araghchi called university “the MIT of Iran,” posting on social media that “Aggressors will see our might.”
Iranian media reported damage to buildings and a natural gas distribution site next to campus. The university is empty as the war has forced all schools into online classes.
A strike near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killed at least 15 people, authorities said. Five were killed in a residential area in Qom, and six were killed in strikes on other cities, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper reported. Three people were killed at a home in Tehran, state television reported.
In Lebanon, where Israel has launched air attacks and a ground invasion that it says target the Iran-linked Hezbollah militia, an airstrike hit an apartment in Ain Saadeh, a predominately Christian town east of Beirut. It killed an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian political party strongly opposed to Hezbollah, his wife and another woman.
“We had always felt safe here,” family friend Nadine Naameh said.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.
More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.
In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
Weissert reported from Washington and Magdy from Cairo. Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Isabel DeBre in Ain Saadeh, Lebanon, contributed to this story.
Nadine Naameh reacts as she looks at the damage to her home following an Israeli strike in the village of Ain Saadeh in the mountains east of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A man works at the site of Sunday's Israeli strike on a building in Beirut's Jnah neighborhood, Lebanon, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Rescue workers and military personnel carry a body of a victim from the rubble of a residential building a day after it was struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Pedestrians look at a destroyed building within the Grand Hosseiniyeh, with the mosque visible in the background, which officials at the site say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday, in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A man sits beside an Iranian flag banner during a government-sponsored protest attended by medical workers against the U.S.-Israeli military campaign outside Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Medical workers attend a government-sponsored protest against the U.S.-Israeli military campaign outside Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Workers remove debris at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology complex that Iranian authorities say was hit early Monday by a U.S.-Israeli strike, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Israeli rescue teams search for missing people amid the rubble of a residential building a day after it was struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A truck loaded with logs and other vehicles drive along a road toward Tehran near the Turkish border on the outskirts of Razi, northwestern Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rescue workers search for victims at the site of an Israeli airstrike that hit a crowded neighbourhood south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Yemeni soldiers patrol the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Yemen, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Israeli rescue teams search for missing people amid the rubble of a residential building a day after it was struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
