SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — September 1, 2026 — Little Hawk Logistics LLC (LHL), the Charlottesville-based on-demand charter provider that has flown Daher TBM turboprops since 2014, will begin flying from Scottsdale Airport (SDL) in early October 2026, extending single-engine turboprop charter service to Arizona and the Desert Southwest.
The Arizona operation is served from Little Hawk's existing three-aircraft TBM fleet, with the company's 2017 TBM 910, N910VM, as the western aircraft. It is the company's first operation outside the Eastern United States in twelve years of flying.
"We are going to Scottsdale to find out what the market there actually wants, not to plant a flag," said Eric Walden, founder and president of Little Hawk Logistics. "We have spent eleven and a half years learning one airplane type in one region very well. The question we are asking this season is whether the same thing works in a market where the distances are longer, the weather is better, and the airports are further apart. We will let the flying answer it."
Scottsdale Airport is among the busiest general aviation airports in the United States and one of the few business-aviation airports inside a major metropolitan area. The City of Scottsdale's own airport master plan forecasts charter passenger growth of 8.8 percent a year — roughly three times the growth rate it projects for total airport operations.
Why a turboprop, and why this one
Little Hawk flies the Daher TBM 900 series exclusively — two TBM 900s and a TBM 910. The type cruises at up to 330 knots true airspeed, close to light-jet speed, while needing a fraction of the runway.
High speed Starlink internet is provided on all flights, in all three aircraft: keep in touch, keep working, and arrive up to date and ready to continue at your destination. On a two-hour leg to Aspen or Pebble Beach, that is a working morning rather than two hours out of contact.
Two hours' flying from Scottsdale
Little Hawk's Arizona map is built around where this market already travels. Flight times from Scottsdale, in the aircraft the company flies:
- La Quinta and Palm Springs, for PGA West and the Coachella clubs — about an hour
- Las Vegas — about an hour
- St George, for golf and Zion — about an hour
- San Diego and Carlsbad, for Aviara, La Costa and Del Mar — just over an hour
- Orange County — just over an hour
- Santa Fe — about an hour and a half
- Telluride — about an hour and a half
- Santa Barbara — about an hour and a half
- Aspen and Vail — under two hours
- Denver — under two hours
- Pebble Beach and Carmel — about two hours
Closer to home, Sedona and the Grand Canyon are inside an hour.
Across twelve years the company has carried passengers into more than forty airports with fewer than 4,000 feet of runway, and three in five of the more than 500 airports it has served have no scheduled airline service of any kind — which is why the list above is built on the airport nearest the destination rather than the nearest airline hub.
"Look at what is inside two hours of Scottsdale," Walden said. "La Quinta, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Carlsbad, Santa Barbara, Aspen, Denver — and Pebble Beach at the far edge of it. That is not a list of places you can get to. That is a list of places this clientele already goes, and right now most of them drive it, connect through Phoenix, or do not go at all. We put you on the airport nearest the first tee rather than the one nearest the freeway."
Little Hawk's operating standards come from the airline and fractional world rather than from general aviation. Walden flew as a captain at Atlantic Coast Airlines and spent eleven years at NetJets before founding the company, and Little Hawk's procedures were built from that experience. Every flight is conducted under 45 North Aviation's Part 135 certificate, with the recurrent training, checkrides and duty and rest limits that carries, and two of the company's pilots hold FAA check airman designations on that programme. Flying a single aircraft type since 2014 means one set of procedures and one set of limitations, rehearsed by everyone who flies them.
Twelve years, measured
Through 27 August 2026 the Little Hawk fleet has flown:
- More than 7,900 block hours
- More than 1.6 million nautical miles — more than 1.9 million statute miles
- More than 7,000 passengers carried — more than 6,500 of them on charter
- More than 500 airports served
The flight department is five professional TBM captains and a full-time first officer. Little Hawk Logistics LLC is an agent of 45 North Aviation, certificate number 9CCA698M. Little Hawk Logistics LLC is not an air carrier. All flights are operated by a Part 135 Carrier.
At NBAA-BACE 2026
Walden will be at NBAA-BACE 2026, 20–22 October, at the Las Vegas Convention Center West Hall, for the full convention. N910VM will be on the ground at North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) for the week.
"Daher gave us a room and an airplane's worth of credibility back in 2015, when we were the only people in the country running TBMs as a charter business," Walden said. "Going into the show with three weeks of Arizona flying already behind us is not an accident. This is a company that has grown by doing one thing carefully. Scottsdale is the next careful thing."