Alan Dron
Metal is now being cut for the first components of the Ayres LM200 Loadmaster freighter, reports the company.
It had been hoped to use Dubai '97 - the first time the company has attended the show - as the platform from which to announce the location of the new assembly plant for the chunky US cargo-hauler.
The decision date has slipped slightly, and is now expected to be January or February 1998.
The new plant is due to be opened somewhere within a 160-km radius (100 miles) of the company's present base at Albany, Georgia.
The Loadmaster is expected to be flying by this time next year, with certification scheduled for early in the third quarter of 1999.
The $4.25 million aircraft is designed around a brief from small-package specialist FedEx and will carry four half-size cargo containers.
FedEx has ordered 50 of the type, and taken options on a further 200. It will be used as a feeder aircraft, slotting in above the single-turboprop Cessna Caravan in its fleet.
Despite this solid domestic market, company president Fred Ayres firmly believes that the main market for the Loadmaster will be in emerging nations with poor transport infrastructure.
Anywhere
"We can operate out of a 2,000ft (610m) runway at full gross weight; you can go almost anywhere and find 2,000ft," he says.
A rugged, trailing-boom undercarriage has been designed to allow the aircraft "to just fall out of the sky" onto airstrips, adds Ayres, who reports interest "from Kathmandu to Papua New Guinea."
Export destinations so far include South Africa and the Netherlands.
Ayres also believes there to be a good market for the type in the Gulf - both the standard version and the proposed floatplane variant. He notes that several float-equipped Caravans operate out of Abu Dhabi.
Despite the Loadmaster's unorthodox powerplant arrangement of two LHTEC CTS800 turboshafts driving a single propeller, there has been little resistance among potential customers, he claims.
Rather, "we've had a lot of positive statements about it, because everyone understands that with this small, commuter-size aircraft, you've got a lot of problems with a [conventional] twin if you lose an engine; you're much better with having the thrust on the centreline.
"There's a tremendous amount of single-engine reserve power available."
Source: Flight Daily News
