This study presents the design of Adaptive Super-Twisting Sliding Mode Control (ASTSMC) for single-axis propeller-driven aircraft to solve the chattering problem in classical sliding mode control and to address the finite-time convergence of system trajectories to their corresponding equilibrium states. The asymptotic stability of the system controlled by STSMC has been proved based on Lyapunov theorem. To cope the uncertainties in system parameters, an adaptive STSMC has been proposed and the adaptive laws is developed accordingly to estimate the uncertain parameters such as to guarantee the asymptotic stability of the closedloop system. For further improvement of STAMC and adaptive STSMC, this study has suggested Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to tune the design parameters of proposed controllers. With this modern optimization technique, the tedious try-anderror procedure in setting the design parameters has been avoided and optimal performances of controllers have been obtained. The effectiveness of the proposed optimal controllers is verified using computer simulations based on MATLAB/Simulink software package.