If Eclipse, Adam Aircraft and Safire don’t hurry up, their efforts to field a light-light jet ahead of the competition could come to fruition too late. According to a news report in the China-based “People’s Daily Online,” a five-seat business aircraft jointly developed by the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) and Nanjing Light-type Aircraft Stock Co. Ltd. recently took to the skies on its maiden flight. According to the online version of the Chinese newspaper, the prototype’s first flight lasted some twenty minutes and reached an altitude of 600 meters (about 2000 feet) before an uneventful landing. The development program is said to be six years old and three aircraft have been manufactured so far. The aircraft is “wholly developed and manufactured by China,” according to the publication, and will be used mainly for business flights, forestry protection, and “other activities.”
