HondaJet gets provisional type certificate
The US Federal Aviation Administration has given Honda a provisional type certificate for its new $4.5 million HondaJet.
The FAA have found that the HondaJet is safe for flight and meets airworthiness standards as laid out inside the certificate.
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Although this is a major milestone in the certification of the HondaJet, the company will not be able to begin customer deliveries until the full type certificate is received.
Honda says it is now working towards full certification, which it expects to achieve “in the next few months.”
“Provisional type certification for the HondaJet is a tremendous milestone for the program and we are pleased to reach this significant step toward customer deliveries and entry into service,” said Michimasa Fujino, president and CEO of Honda Aircraft. “Honda Aircraft has completed nearly all of the testing and reports required by the FAA, and we are very close to achieving final type certification for the world’s most advanced light jet.”
Speaking to Corporate Jet Investor at EBACE 2014, Fujino said that the company would deliver six aircraft immediately after the HondaJet gets its full type certificate, and a further 50 aircraft in the 12 months following.
Fujino also promised that the HondaJet would make its EBACE debut in 2015, saying: “Next year I promise to bring [a] HondaJet here.”
When the company does finally receive the HondaJet’s type certificate, it will bring to an end one of the longest running development processes in business aviation.
Fujino first started design drawings for the HondaJet during 1997, but it was not until two years later that a design for the new aircraft would be settled on.
Unusually for a jet aircraft, the engines are mounted above the wings, reminiscent of the low-selling VFW-614 regional airliner that was produced in Germany during the early 1970s.
