When Diamond Aircraft announced plans to offer a single-engine “personal jet” a few years ago, it’s likely no one could predict the market nerve the Austrian/Canadian company had touched. There are now at least six aircraft in the same general genre under development and a Bend, Ore. company, Stratos Aircraft, entered the running on Wednesday with a four-place design, the Stratos 714, it says will go 1,500 nm at 400 knots, in sleek looking, $2 million carbon-fiber package pushed by a Williams FJ-44. It also coined a new acronym for its entry, the VLPJ, or very light personal jet. No other aircraft, certified or announced, can claim to achieve the speed, range and utility that make the Stratos 714 a practical, owner-flown Very Light Personal Jet (VLPJ).
“No other aircraft, certified or announced, can claim to achieve the speed, range and utility that make the Stratos 714 a practical, owner-flown Very Light Personal Jet (VLPJ),” the company news release says. It predicts first deliveries in just 18 months, well ahead of Cirrus’s Vision SJ50, which is undergoing preliminary flight tests and isn’t expected to go to the first customer until 2011. The company will have a booth at EAA AirVenture.
