Flight Design has partnered with AeroJones, a Taiwanese company working in China, to build its airplanes in Xiamen, a coastal city, for the Asian market. AeroJones has successfully completed a “full manufacturing evaluation,” Flight Design said in a news release this week. Flight Design CEO Matthias Betsch, Director Christian Wenger and Flight Design USA President Tom Peghiny visited AeroJones recently to witness the completion of the company’s first conforming CTLS. “We examined a batch of four AeroJones-produced prototypes,” said Peghiny. “After training was conducted on composite structures, the team fabricated multiple prototypes, of which the fully conforming CTLS was the fourth built by the company.”
The final prototype, built 98 percent of carbon fiber as are the company’s European airplanes, complies with all ASTM standards, Flight Design said. “Now that they have completed the run of four prototypes culminating in a fully conforming article, AeroJones can begin the effort for serial production,” said Wenger. AeroJones is breaking ground on a new 250,000-square-foot production facility in Changzhou. The company will produce airframes for the CTLS light-sport aircraft as well as Flight Design’s four-seat C4, which is expected to take its first flight soon.
