Morrow Aircraft, the Oregon-based company planning to produce Burt Rutan's unconventional Boomerang piston twin, is revising its strategy to include leasing and operating the aircraft, as well as manufacturing it.
"We are changing the business to something like the American Blimp concept," says founder and president Ray Morrow, who also co-founded American Blimp, an airship manufacturer that operates them predominantly for advertising purposes. The move is being interpreted as one solution to securing the $3 million needed to launch the programme and complete prototype development.
Morrow says it has raised $2 million of the $3 million, adding: "We hope to restart work on the prototype in the next couple of weeks." The prototype is at the Scaled Composites factory in Mojave, California, where the original Boomerang - on which the Morrow development is based - was built. Under the original agreement reached in October 1998 between Rutan and Morrow, Scaled Composites is due to make a single prototype and two certification-test examples of a production version.
Morrow says three main issues have slowed down the fund raising drive. "Everyone wants to know why it looks so different, then there is the propeller versus jet debate and the air-taxi concept," he says.
The company is focusing on explaining the Boomerang concept, which is designed to eliminate the single-engined handling problems experienced with most twins, while promoting its low-cost advantages compared to a small turboprop or turbofan-powered competitor.
The six-seat Boomerang is 15% longer than Rutan's original, with a 20% larger payload. Powered by turbocharged Teledyne Continental TSIO-550s, flat rated to 240kW (325hp), it will have a maximum cruise speed of 330kt (555km/h) and a range of 4,625km (2,500nm).
Source: Flight International
