With the help of the Canadian National Resource Council (NRC), nascent amphibian composite airframer Seawind is proceeding toward Transport Canada certification for its on-again, off-again four-seat single engine aircraft in 2012.
The Kimberton, Pennsylvania-based company had anticipated the 300C would be certified by the end of 2007 after missing several earlier certification targets, although the fatal accident of its prototype earlier that year halted the programme until 2009. A second prototype has been in testing at the NRC's aerospace flight research laboratory at Ottawa's Uplands airport since June 2010. NRC is providing test pilots and test instrumentation for the programme.
Richard Silva, president of SeaAir Composites, the company in charge of manufacturing the 300C, said remaining flight testing tasks include flutter checks of control surface modifications made to increase pitch and roll/yaw damping as well as stick pusher tests. Silva said the 300C required a stick pusher as it did not meet the one-turn recovery requirement from a one-turn power off, full-flap spin. The aircraft's stall protection system will feature a stick shaker that activates prior to stall, with a stick pusher firing afterward if the angle of attack continues to increase.
By January, Silva hopes to take the aircraft to warmer climes for water performance testing, which includes takeoff and landing distance trials. Once that work is complete, the aircraft will return to Ottawa for noise testing, which will be followed by "three to four months" of paperwork completion for the Transport Canada and US Federal Aviation Administration certification, said Silva.
A second prototype is in development for instrument flight rules certification later, said Silva.
Orders for the $400,000 aircraft stand at "just above" 50, said Silva. Production capacity at the company's Saint Jean Sur Richelieu plant in Quebec would be 235 per year using one labour shift, he added.
Source: Flight International
