The new owners of the rights to the former Sino Swearingen SJ30 business jet have been offered an “aggressive” incentive package to build the aircraft in Cedar City, Utah. The company is now called SyberJet. The package would be worth about $10 million in property tax relief for an enterprise touted to create 1,200 aerospace jobs in the town, which is about 250 miles south of Salt Lake City. “This is the best incentive we’ve offered to anyone in recent years,” said Brennan Wood, director of the Office of Economic Development. The state is also reportedly reaching for its checkbook to sweeten the deal. SyberJet is also considering San Antonio, Texas, as its home but it’s not clear what incentives have been offered there. Although the light jet market that the SJ30 would re-enter is the weakest segment of business aviation, SyberJet CEO Chuck Taylor says the aircraft’s performance sets it apart.
“The aircraft is the highest-performing light business jet in the market today,” Taylor told KUTV. “It flies faster, it flies farther and it flies higher than any of its competitors.” The SJ30 was bought out of bankruptcy from Dubai-based Emivest in 2011 by Cedar City-based Metalcraft, which made many of the components for the aircraft under the previous owner. Metalcraft is the latest of a string of owners and partners, including Lockheed and Gulfstream, that have touched the project since its inception almost 30 years ago.
