Officials of Bell/Agusta Aerospace Co. plan to resume flying the BA609 on Oct. 29, launching an aggressive three-year certification program aimed at delivering the first aircraft to a customer late in 2007. The world's first commercial tiltrotor would be certified under the Powered Lift Category-the first all-new category aircraft to be certified by the FAA since 1946, according to BAAC officials. A pre-production aircraft first flew in March 2003 and logged 14 hr. in the air last year. Those flights were restricted to helicopter mode, but the tiltrotor will make a key transition to airplane mode early in the new program, said Roy C. Hopkins, principal experimental test pilot.
展开▼
