Graham Warwick/ATLANTA
Learjet says that certification of the Model 45 light business-jet is likely to be delayed until December 1996, but insists that initial deliveries will take place on schedule. Only four aircraft, instead of the planned eight, will be delivered before the end of parent company Bombardier's financial year in January 1997, admits Learjet president Brian Barents.
The Wichita Kansas based company, will roll out the Learjet 45, on 14 September and hopes to fly the aircraft between 22 and 24 September, on the eve of the US National Business Aircraft Association convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Learjet will actually roll out the second aircraft, he says, to avoid interrupting preparations to fly the first aircraft.
The first flight was originally scheduled for March this year, with certification due in July 1996. Barents attributes the three months' delay to problems in coordinating work with Bombardier companies de Havilland and Shorts, respectively responsible for design and manufacture of the wing and fuselage, because the three companies were initially using different computer-aided design systems.
Further delays resulted from a loss of configuration control on the first four aircraft. This was a documentation, not design, problem Barents stresses, resulting from differences in configuration standards between the four aircraft. Installation of flight test instrumentation and an emergency-egress system on the production-standard first aircraft further slowed progress, he says.
Learjet will use five aircraft, instead of the originally planned four, for flight-testing. Simultaneous US and European certification is still planned, but US approval will take precedence if there are any further delays, Barents says.
Delays will quickly be recovered, once deliveries start, he emphasises, revealing that Learjet is studying the possibility of increasing production to meet demand. Production has already been increased once, to 36 in 1997 and 48 in 1998, and Learjet is now determining if production can be increased to 60 in 1998, he says.
The first two years' production of the $5.9 million aircraft is sold out and the first delivery positions available are in 1999. Availability is impacting sales, as 1999 "...is on the planning horizon" for corporate operators, Barents says.
Source: Flight International
