Polish engineering company Metal Master is in the final stages of ground testing its Flaris LAR-1 personal jet, and plans to fly the five-seat single early in the second quarter.
"We are still performing tests of the on-board systems under the supervision of the Polish civil aviation authority," says company founder and LAR-1 project manager Rafał Ładziński. “But all ground testing should be complete by the end of [March] 2017.”
US start-up Stratos Aircraft says it will debut its 714 very-light personal jet at two leading US business and general aviation trade shows this year, in an attempt to attract investment in the high-performance type.
“We are planning to display the proof-of-concept aircraft at the AirVenture show in Oshkosh in July and at the NBAA business aviation convention in October 2017,”
SyberJet Aircraft says engineering work on the new cockpit of its SJ30i business jet is “95% complete” and the revamped light twin should make its maiden sortie in the third quarter of 2017.
The SJ30 programme was acquired in 2011 by SyberJet’s parent company MTI, whose subsidiary Metalcraft Technologies was the aft fuselage supplier for the programme. Four SJ30-2s are in service today including an example – serial number 010 – owned by US actor and SJ30 brand ambassador Morgan Freeman.
OY-FIT BD700 9186 sold as G-KBMM
M-SSSR BD700 9406 sold as RA-67242
OE-LML BD700 9747
CS-DRR HS125 258786 sold as N878TX
CS-DUH HS125 HB-21 sold as N796TX
C-FLMK CL605 5786 re-reg. as C-FLMY
OH-GVI CL605 5849 sold as OE-IIX
D-IDAG C525 0144 sold as N525BQ
YU-BUU C525 0411 sold as N411CJ
D-CHIO C525B 0378 sold as D-CSCA
D-CDUS C525C 0161 sold as EC-MOQ
G-JBIS C550 0447 sold as N550HT
G-IBZA C550 0672 sold as F-HBZA
HB-VD0 C551 0133 sold as F-GJOD
G-OXLS C560 5675 sold as N189HE
EC-KPE C560 5764 sold as OE-GOL
M-MAEE G450 4322 sold as N450VA
D-CPRO LJ31 155 sold as D-CAMB
9H-AFJ LJ6-0 030 sold as D-CFAZ
G-SXTY LJ60 280 sold as N....
M-IGHT LJ60 382 sold as ZK-....
I-GSIN LJ60 414 sold as OE-GLJ
G-RBEN BD700 9083 sold as CS-RBN
VP-CJT BD700 9374 sold as T7-JAT (EHAM 23-3-2017)
N451GX BD700 sold as 9H-NGX
LY-LTC HS125-800XP 258399 reg. cancelled
OY-CEV C500 0329 sold as N810JT
D-IKOP C525 0016 sold as HA-KAR
G-TBEA C525A 0191 sold as M-TBEA
D-IFDN C525A 0343 sold as HB-VER
HB-VDO C551 0133 sold as F-GJOB
D-CMEI C560 0117 sold as N21LM
HB-JSI FA7X 037 sold as N360PZ
OY-CKN FA2000 076 sold as N125GB
CS-DNR FA2000 120 sold as N120VR
4L-ALF EMB500 50250 sold as N861CB
N720GD G7/G600 73002
N750GD G7/G600 73005
D-CPRO LJ31 155 re-reg. as D-CAMB
D-COKE LJ55 447 sold as XA-DOC
G-ZXZX LJ45 005 sold as OE-GIQ
D-CMSC LJ45 097 sold as LX-....
OE-GSV LJ60 300 stored as NUE
M-URAL LJ60 328 sold as YL-BJA
M-IGHT LJ60 382 sold as ZK-JAK
Use of private jets grows with younger people and women in Europe
The application of technology to private aviation has seen an increase in the number of younger people and women using private jets in Europe.
While private aviation is typically the reserve of male business executives, the introduction of booking platform Stratajet has opened up the market to an increasingly tech-savvy and younger private flier.
Stratajet sees that women searching for private jets doubled in 2016, removing the idea that private jets are only used by men. Women represent a faster growing segment for flight searching, with the number of searches by female customers increasing by over 50% more than men.
In 2013 Citigroup issued a depressing piece of research suggesting that the business jet market faced a “lost decade” of flat deliveries.
It argued that manufacturers had built too many aircraft during the 2000s boom – so the next 10 years were going to be tough for new sales.
More depressingly, Citi have now revisited this theory and believe that it is correct.
And that deliveries will continue to be flat until 2020.
“The good news is that it probably does not get too much worse from here and that new products set up for a 2020s recovery,”
write Jason Gursky and Jonathan Raviv in an excellent paper titled Making BizJets Great Again.
“The bad news is that it is still a few years away.”
The pair have looked back at deliveries since 2013 and their theory has been shown most clearly in small and mid-size aircraft.