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Aviation History
2001
2001 - 2479.PDF
BUSINESS AND GENERAL AVIATION AIRFRAME DEVELOPMENT KATE SARSFIELD / LONDON IAI teams with VisionAire on Vantage verification Israeli involvement in six-seat business jet will help the manufacturer attract funding 1999/2000 to address handling and weight concerns that arose during flight testing. Jones adds: "IAI will review the changes made following the redesign and ensure that subse quent alterations to the aircraft are leading the programme in the right direction. They will also explore other potential improvements." VisionAire's initial goal is to build a windtunnel model to verify aerodynamic changes as soon as possible. Five new test articles will be built - two ground test and three flight test - while the original flying pro totype will be used for analysis and verification tests. Funding is still a major issue and with $100 million already spent on the programme VisionAire is seek ing at least $120 million to cover total programme costs, says Jones. He adds: "Once we have secured most of the funding we could com plete the certification programme in less than 30 months." The price of the Vantage remains unchanged at $2,195 million, he says. IAI will have a 'big brother1 Vantage role Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) is undertaking design verification of the VisionAire Vantage and may eventually manage all technical aspects of the six-seat, single engine business jet programme. The move is designed to slash staffing levels and programme costs, and to accelerate development of the all-composite Vantage, says St Louis, Missouri-based VisionAire. Tel Aviv-based LAI will work with Scaled Technology Works (STW), hired by VisionAire to design, develop and certificate the major composite airframe parts for the Vantage, including the wing, air frame and fuselage. STW will also build the production standard pro totypes, ground test articles and the first nine production aircraft. Mark Jones, VisionAire assistant secretary, says: "IAI will essentially have a big brother role, looking over our shoulder, and will feed technical data to STW to incorpo rate into the hardware." VisionAire admits Vantage devel opment has been stifled after the aircraft's forced redesign in MODIFICATIONS Non-turbo 210 certified Atlantic Aero and sister com pany Aero Modifications and Consulting have won US Federal Aviation Administra tion supplemental tyfce certification for the conver sion of turbocharged Cessna 210s to the normally aspirated Teledyne Continental IO-550-P engine. The modification, applica ble to aircraft built between 1970 and 1984, adds the 550TI (tuned induction) system upgrade, whVch Atlantic claims provides up to a 43% increase in time between overhauls, as well as significant perfor mance improvements. UTILITY AIRCRAFT Found finds finance and Bush Hawk customer Canada's Found Aircraft has deliv ered its first Bush Hawk light utility aircraft as new management and investment puts the company on a firmer footing. The first two production B«sh Hawk 300s, both equipped with floats, have been handed over to Zachar Bay Lodge, a fishing camp in Alaska, and Alpine Aviation, a charter operator in Canada's Yukon Territory. The Bush Hawk is an improved version of the FBA-2C, 27 of which were built by Found in the 1960s. The new aircraft incorporates a number of upgrades, including a 225kW (300hp) Textron Lycoming IO-540 engine. The bigger engine was intro duced after the original 195kW Bush Hawk 260 failed to secure customers. Found is now adding high-lift Fowler flaps to produce the Bush Hawk XP. Canadian certi fication is scheduled for September. A new management team has taken over at Found, bringing with it new investment. The Parry Sound, Ontario-based company is gearing up for production of one aircraft a month, with plans to increase this to four a month "within a couple of years". NETWORK GROWS Poland's PZL International is planning to expand its interna tional dealer network to stimulate demand for its general aviation aircraft product line which includes the PZL-112 trainer, PZL-104M Wilga 2000 high wing multi-purpose mono plane and the PZL-106 BTU-34 agricultural aircraft. Five of its planned 20 dealers have been appointed and a further five should be in place by the middle of next year, says the company. 328JET ORDER Fairchild Dornier has sold a 328JET to Spanish charter com pany Audeli Aircompany. The 32-seat aircraft will be deployed by the Madrid-based company on corporate and charter opera tions for major Spanish companies. The order marks the second 328JET sale to a Spanish company in a week. Madrid-based Grupo InvestBlue is scheduled to receive its corpo rate-configured aircraft following Audeli later this year. OIL EXPLORER MD Helicopters has sold two MD Explorers to PT Airfast Indonesia, marking the first sale of an Explorer for offshore oil support missions. The helicopter will operate off the Java coast. Airfast Indonesia also plans to acquire additional Explorers for other Indonesian offshore sup port contracts later this year. The Explorer has previously proved popular for police and air med ical operations. Deliveries are set to begin in September. DUBAI PLANS Bombardier plans to establish a new factory service operation in Dubai, in conjunction with joint venture partner ExecuJet Aviation and Alpha 55, to support and maintain its entire aircraft range in the emerging Middle East market. The new support centre is set to become fully operational next year and will bring its world wide network of service bases to nine. Meanwhile, Bombardier's Flexjet Europe fractional owner ship company has signed Formula 1 racing team owner Alain Prost as a sixteenth share- owner of a Learjet 31 A. www.fliqhtinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 3-9 JULY 2001 25
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