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Aviation History
2000
2000 - 0778.PDF
LI*MESIAL AVJAfJun Customers approve S-26 engine SAFIRE AIRCRAFT says cus tomer reaction to selection of a previously unknown engine sup plier for its S-26 personal jet has been positive. The company is pro ceeding with plans for an initial public offering (IPO) to raise funds ! for certification of the aircraft. The West Palm Beach, Florida- based company, which expects to have taken deposits on up to 500 aircraft by the end of this month, says it has been contacted by 150 customers seeking more informa tion on the engine and its supplier, Agilis Engines Flight International, 14-20 March). Safire designed the S-26 around NEWS IN BRIEF • BUSH REINSTATED The US Federal Aviation Administration has reinstat ed the type certificate for Found Aircraft Canada's FBA-2C1 Bush Hawk light utility aircraft. The first pro duction Bush Hawk flew early this month at the com pany's new plant at Georgian Bay Airport, near Toronto, Ontario. • HELIPORT OPENS An unlicensed heliport was opened in Cardiff, UK, on 15 March. The £3.5 million ($5.5 million) facility has a 300m (1,000ft) runway and claims to be "the first pur pose-built heliport in Europe capable of all-weather flights". • COVERAGE EXTENDED The US Federal Aviation Ad ministration has agreed to maintain VHF direction- finding (DF) equipment at 111 sites until 2010. The FAA had planned to decommis sion all DF sites in 1997, but at the request of user groups it conducted a study to iden tify locations still requiring coverage. As a result, DF will be retained and upgraded at 103 locations and eight new sites added. Williams International's FXJ-2 small turbofan, but switched sup pliers after the engine manufactur er signed an exclusive agreement to power Eclipse Aviation's compet ing personal jet (Flight Inter national, 7-13 March). Williams' contract to certificate a derivative of the FJX-2 to power the Eclipse 500 will delay availabil ity to other customers of the XASA-sponsored small turbofan. Having been led to believe die Williams engine would be avail able in 2003, Safire has switched to Agilis to stay on schedule. The company is also "complete ly convinced" that Agilis can build a better engine, says Safire president Michael Margaritoff. "Most of our customers are pilots. They under stand that by optimising both the aircraft and the engine we will get the best aircraft," he says. Safire is going ahead with plans for an IPO later this year to raise the $30 million needed to type- certificate the S-26. A separate and parallel effort is under way to raise "more than $100 million" to build a factory and get the production certificate, says Margaritoff. Agilis, an engineering services company formed in 1993 by ex- Pratt & Whitney employees and based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, will be responsible for rais- ingthe funding required for certifi cation and production of its engine, Margaritoff says. Safire continues to take refund able $8,000 deposits on the $800,000 S-26 at an impressive rate. It booked 118 orders in February and expects to take 140- 150 this month. Since announcing that unknown Agilis will be the engine supplier, Safire says it has "not lost one deposit". Buyers will not be required to make non-refundable downpay- ments until after the first flight, due in 2002. Certification and first deliveries are planned tor 2003. 3 Be-200 tests to resume BETA AIR, a joint venture between Beriev, the Irkutsk Aircraft Production Association (IAPO) and private investors, plans to resume water runs of its Be-200 twinjet amphibian this month at the Ghelendjik mari time-aviation flight test base on the Black Sea. The second Be-200 proto type, in assembly at the IAPO plant, will join the flight-test programme in November. Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations has ordered eight Be-200s for search and rescue and firefighting missions. The Be-200 will also be avail able in air ambulance, maritime patrol and passenger veersions. China and South Korea are believed to be interested in the maritime patrol Be-200, while the passenger version is intend ed for Malaysia and the Philippines. J AASI secures extra cash for Jetcruzer certification costs ADVANCED Aerodynamics & Structures (AASI) has raised die first $5 million of a $10 million cash injection needed to complete the long-awaited US Federal Aviation Administration certification of the Jetcruzer 500 turboprop, as well as to ramp up its Long Beach, California, factory site for mass production. A group of investors is raising the cash from the sale of cumula tive convertible preferred stock from AASI and will help fund com pletion of work on a composite fuselage for pressurisation tests. Additional cash will be used to help complete maximum cruise-speed trials on the initial Jetcruzer, which has accumulated more than 1,000h of flight tests. AASI says all tests are due to be completed by the end of tliis month, with FAA certification expected aroundjune. Initial deliv eries will begin in "the latter part of 2000", it adds. The company has a backlog of 182 firm orders, worth about $220 million, and plans to bolster its orderbook with a fractional- ownership scheme being devel oped (Flight International, 17-23 January). The pressurised, single- engined six-seater is priced at $1.4 million. -J 34 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 21 - 27 March 2000
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