Vickers Aircraft USA, the company behind the WAVE amphibian, has announced a second airplane: the FAST4, a low-wing, four-seat, single-engine piston airplane meant to carry four adults and full fuel at 235 knots. Its press release, dated October 2026 and posted on Vickers' news page, quotes CEO Paul Vickers on what pilots have been asking for: "performance, useful load, range, safety in an aircraft that is affordable to own." It is a design for now. The release's only picture is the name, and every performance figure in it is a target.
What Vickers says the FAST4 will be
The press release lists these targets:
- Maximum cruise: 235 KTAS.
- Range: 1,300 nautical miles, with four adults and full fuel.
- Useful load: 1,520 pounds.
- Fuel: 102 gallons.
- Folding wings, designed to cut the hangar space needed by half.
- IFR capability.
The airframe is to be all carbon fiber, built with a manufacturing method Vickers says it has put through destructive testing and that is meant to cut build time and cost. A BRS airframe recovery parachute is planned, and Vickers says the system is meant to be serviced through authorized BRS agents. The release says the panel could include Garmin AXIS displays and Garmin's Autoland. AXIS is the display family Garmin announced in July, with the IFR GPS, NAV/COMM and audio panel built into the display (Hangar Debrief's article on it).
AOPA, which interviewed the company for its Nov. 5 report, adds that the FAST4 is to have fixed landing gear, a wraparound windshield with a center post, overhead switches, touch-screen displays and digital electrical switching, and that it will share wiring, flight controls and seating with the WAVE. Vickers' own release says only "selected components and systems."
What isn't known
Vickers hasn't named an engine. It hasn't given a price, a deposit, a first-flight date, a certification schedule or a delivery date. It says the FAST4 will be built in the United States, alongside the WAVE, and that "several states" are in talks to host the factory. No site has been chosen.
Nor has it published a stalling speed or a maximum takeoff weight, and those decide how the airplane can be certificated and who can fly it. The release says Vickers sees "the FAA MOSAIC / Part22 regulatory environment" as a way to bring a new airplane to market at less cost and in less time. Under 14 CFR 22.100, an airplane in the new light-sport category may have up to four seats, a stalling speed of no more than 61 knots CAS in landing configuration, and a top speed in level flight at maximum continuous power of no more than 250 knots CAS. The rule sets no weight limit. Vickers' 235-knot figure is true airspeed, not calibrated, so it can't be set against the 250-knot limit without the altitude it was figured for. And a light-sport category airplane is not always one a sport pilot may fly: 14 CFR 61.316 holds a sport pilot to airplanes that stall at 59 knots CAS or less, clean. Hangar Debrief's article on part 22 sets out the rest.
The WAVE, by Vickers' own account
Vickers is best known for the WAVE, an amphibian it has been developing for more than a decade. The company's dated posts trace it:
- October 2023: the WAVE completed its flight test program.
- May 2024: Vickers gave the WAVE's figures as a 120-knot cruise, a 750-pound useful load and a 1,100-nautical-mile range, and said it was exploring U.S. manufacturing sites. It called itself "a predominantly USA-owned company."
- September 2025: Vickers said the WAVE was "fully aligned with the requirements of Part 22" with no design changes, raised its maximum takeoff weight to 2,000 pounds with a 50-knot stall, and said it had missed its own target of delivering customer airplanes by the middle of 2025. The same post said Vickers Aircraft USA had been formed as a C corporation.
- April 2026: "deep in production development mode, the long and difficult final phase before our first customer delivery."
- October 2026: the FAST4 release says the WAVE is "in its certification phase."
AOPA's report quotes Vickers as saying the WAVE's complexity made its development take much longer than expected. For a buyer, that history is the context for the FAST4's figures: Vickers' posts report no WAVE delivered to a customer yet, and the FAST4 has not flown.
Paul Vickers, in the release: "With the WAVE in its certification phase, we can begin to focus resources on this exciting new aircraft."
Sources: Vickers Aircraft, What's New: "Vickers Aircraft USA Announces the FAST4," press release, October 2026, and the company's posts of October 2023, May 2024, September 2025 and April 2026; AOPA, "Vickers begins building speedy four-seater," Janine Canillas, Nov. 5, 2026; 14 CFR 22.100 (eCFR); Hangar Debrief, 14 CFR part 22; AVweb, "Vickers Announces 235-Knot FAST4 Aircraft," Oct. 29, 2026 (the pointer to the story).
Photo: Vickers Aircraft, the WAVE in flight, from the Vickers Aircraft home page.