Graham Warwick in Washington DC
Sino Swearingen Aircraft (SSAC) will deliver the first SJ30 light jet in June to entrepreneur Doug Jaffe, one of the original investors in the programme. The SJ30, which will replace the San Antonio, Texas-based businessman’s Learjet 35A, will be leased back by Jaffe to SSAC for customer training and demonstration flights.
Jaffe – the J in SJ30 – took a 50% stake in designer Ed Swearingen’s light jet programme, paying for construction of the SJ30-1 prototype and its display at the Paris airshow in 1991. Jaffe says he also helped find the Taiwanese backers who invested in the programme in 1995, forming SSAC. He did not withdraw his backing from the SJ30, as stated in Flight International 25 April – 1 May, and Jaffe and Swearingen still have significant shareholdings in SSAC.
Jaffe will take delivery of the first customer SJ30, aircraft 006, 25 years after he first invested. While lamenting the decision to stretch the aircraft – “That was a mistake. We should have gone with the -1 and we would have been in production 10 years ago,” he says – Jaffe believes the resulting SJ30 is a “real disrupter”.
He cites the aircraft’s fuel consumption, 340 litres/h (90USgal/h) compared with (760 litres/h) for his Learjet, and the ability to fly from San Antonio to the east or west coast and back without paying higher prices for fuel away from the aircraft’s home base.
Source: Flight International
