"We're building the next plane same as the last," Sport-Jet founder Bob Bornhofen told AVweb Tuesday. With the fuselage currently in construction, that aircraft should be in the air "in 10 or 11 months." The project to produce a $1 million certified four-seat single-engine jet that would cruise at 340 knots at 25,000 feet suffered a major setback when the original proof-of-concept aircraft on June 22, 2006, crashed after 25 hours of otherwise "virtually flawless" flight testing. Test pilot James Stewart survived the crash without injury and has stayed on with the project. "We had to convince some financial types that it wasn't the airplane," Bornhofen said, but while the program could always use more money, funding has been secured to see the build of the second aircraft through to completion. The new aircraft will incorporate the design's originally intended aluminum wings and further optimize cabin space. (The original proof-of-concept aircraft flew with composite wings due to a problem with a supplier, according to Bornhofen.) "We haven't found anything that would prohibit the plane from gaining certification," said Bornhofen, who aims to reach that goal in two to three years.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/second-sport-jet-in-progress