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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 0407.PDF
Learjet ends Tucson reprieve TUCSON Learjet management has decided yet again to close its Tucson, Arizona, factory and shift manufacturing to Wichita, Kansas. A similar decision made two years ago was promptly over turned, primarily on cost grounds, but Learjet president and chief executive officer Bev Lancaster says that the latest study indicates "significant" savings from a consolidation at Wichita, with relocation costs recovered in two years. The move, which is to be spread over several months to ensure uninterrupted produc tion and deliveries, and to be completed by the year-end, will create 300 new jobs in Wichita, according to Learjet. A similar number will be axed at Tucson, though Learjet intends to continue customer service, modification, and new and used aircraft sales departments there, employing around 250. "While we do not have a total package assembled on what the city, county, and state can do to assist us, we believe we are close enough in our discussions that we can proceed with the announce ment," Lancaster says. Wichita's business climate was a key factor in the deci sion, he adds. Existing Learjet facilities will be used in Wichita, where Learjet now employs 1,340. A decision in late 1985 made by the then manu facturing chief Max Bleck (now president of Beech) was reversed in February of the following year, by Learjet's Harry Combs, who argued that a move would have "irre versible" financial impact. Learjet's decision is a second boost to Wichita employment, hard hit by the plummeting sales of general- aviation aircraft built there. Beech announced earlier this month that it will move all Beechjet 400 manufacturing to Wichita, creating 300 jobs. Learjet's Tucson assembly line is to close after years of uncertainty Gulfstream offers free G-IV modification SAVANNAH Gulfstream will not be charg ing operators for modifica tions on offer to increase the maximum operating weight of the G-IV business jet. Denying that the aircraft has failed to meet perform ance guarantees, Gulfstream's vice-president for inter national marketing, Joseph Anckner, says that airframe changes, which increase load capability by 1,5001b, will take several weeks to perform at the company's Savannah, Georgia, factory. The changes are being offered because cus tomised interiors are heavier than expected. Alternative aircraft will not be offered for use in the interim. Flight tests of the heavier G-IV, powered by uprated Rolls-Royce Tay turbofans, have been completed, and certification should be received next month, Anckner says. Some 38 G-IVs have been delivered to completion centres, and 14 are in service. Production reached 44 last year, and Gulfstream expects to have delivered 86 by the end of this year and 126 by the end of the next. GENERAL A VIA TION Fletcher wins Thai order HAMILTON ~ Pacific Aerospace Corpor ation of Hamilton, New Zealand is to supply six Fletcher FU24-954 agricultural/utility aircraft to the Thailand Ministry of Agricultural Co-operatives. This is the first sale of agri cultural aircraft to an Asian mainland nation for more than five years, according to Robert Geer, Pacific Aero space's sales manager. The aircraft will be delivered within one year and will be used for agricultural work and rain-making. The aircraft, powered by a 400 h.p. Lycoming piston engine, has a one-ton payload and is currently operating in Pakistan, Latin America, the Sudan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Fiji Islands. A tender for the Thai order was placed through Aviation Technical Services of Bangkok. Lockheed USA holds a 25 per cent equity interest in Pacific Aerospace. Operators are specifying interiors that are heavier than expected, says Gulfstream Daewoo 'matches' US quality SEOUL A Sikorsky official has been praising the quality of manu facturing at South Korea's Daewoo. William Walgren, director of Daewoo-Sikorsky Aerospace, says "they can build helicopters at lower cost and with at least the quality that we can". Sikorsky signed an agree ment with Daewoo in August 1986 for licence production of the S-76B in South Korea. "We want to make it an Asian product," says Walgren. Sikorsky no longer has the capacity at its US plant to build all the machines on order, and Daewoo will build S-76B helicopters for export as well as for domestic use. Daewoo is to make four commercial S-76Bs this year, each powered by Pratt & Whitney PT6 engines, but it has yet to hear whether its tender to the South Korean defence ministry, involving the H-76 Eagle, a military variant, has succeeded. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 20 February 1988 IS
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