Liberty Aerospace expects to achieve certification by April of the XL-2, pending successful flight tests, including spin tests.
Approval was planned for mid-2002, but has been delayed, says Florida-based Liberty, by its decision to reconfigure the two-seat aircraft with a larger 105 litre (28 USgal) fuel tank and the Powerlink FADEC (full authority digital engine control) version of the 96kW (125hp) Teledyne Continental IOF-240 piston engine. "We have 60 firm deposits and around 120 further aircraft are in the sales process," says sales and marketing vice-president Kenneth Starnes.
Meanwhile, the aircraft is into the second week of a planned 60 days of flight testing and, when the tests are completed in January, the XL-2 is expected to become the first single-engined piston to be certificated with a FADEC, narrowly beating the similarly equipped Lancair Columbia 400.
Source: Flight International
