US-based Piper Aircraft has now received type certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its new Piper M600 single-engine aircraft.

Part of Piper’s M-class line up, the M600 has six seats and is powered by a Pratt & Whitney PT6A-42A turbo prop engine.

At maximum available power settings, the aircraft has a top speed of 507km/h and a maximum range of 2,748km at intermediate cruise settings.

Piper Aircraft chief operating officer James Funk said: "This achievement of type certification for the M600 was the result of the collaborative effort between the FAA and the team at Piper Aircraft.

"Both teams worked together to develop and test this exceptional product, which we can now bring to market."

"Both teams worked together to develop and test this exceptional product, which we can now bring to market."

The M600 features general aviation avionics suite from Garmin and has improved safety features, including emergency descent mode, electronic stability protection, level mode and underspeed / overspeed protection.

Garmin GTC 570 touchscreen controller equipped with M600 offers centralised point of access for the majority of all avionics tuning, selection and data inputs.

Along with the FAA, Piper Aircraft had validated M600’s performance, safety, function and reliability through a series of ground and flight tests.

The total flight hours amassed during development and certification were more than 1,850h using three flight test aircraft.

M600 also has a maximum speed of 463km/h and can carry a maximum payload of 508kg.

Listed at a price of $2.853m, M600 was unveiled by Piper Aircraft last April.