Alan Dron
Fairchild Aerospace's Dornier Luftfahrt unit is to move work on the Fairchild Dornier 428JET to Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), to bring the 44-seat regional jet into service around six months earlier than planned.
Discussions are also under way over the possibility of the Israeli company constructing the aircraft's fuselage, mating it with the wings and flying the 'green' aircraft to Dornier's Oberpfaffenhofen plant for fitting out and delivery.
The selection of IAI as "a major supplier partner", announced by Fairchild president Jim Robinson at the show yesterday, comes after what he describes as the "phenomenal interest" shown in jets in the below 50-seat category.
The 428JET was initially planned to enter service in early spring 2003, but pressure has been building from potential customers - particularly US carriers - to get the aircraft into service more rapidly.
Placing work with IAI should mean the in-service date being brought forward to around August 2002.
Under the terms of the initial $80 million agreement, IAI will be responsible for system engineering and integration, flight testing and certification support for the 428JET.
Robinson told a press conference that, while there were cost advantages in relocating work from Germany to Israel, that had not been the main reason for the move.
"The real issue is spreading the risk, or the workload, when we're trying to do two programmes, the 428 and 728, simultaneously."
He notes that IAI had a long history with Dornier, having done "a lot of work" on the wing of the smaller 328.
IAI chief executive officer Moshe Keret says his company has a record of rapidly progressing projects.
He notes that IAI has taken its Galaxy business jet from first flight to certification in less than a year.
Source: Flight Daily News