Emivest ready to ramp up production of SJ30 twinjet

By: Mark Huber

September 1, 2009
Aircraft

More than a year after it bought 80 percent of Sino Swearingen Aircraft, infused it with $150 million of new capital, and rebranded it Emivest Aerospace, the company’s Dubai-based owner, Emirates Investment and Development, may be on the verge of establishing a regular production schedule for the $7.25 million SJ30 light twinjet. A spokesman for the company reports that seven aircraft are currently in work and that the company has approximately 300 employees. Airframe component production continues at the company’s Martinsburg, W.Va. plant with final assembly in San Antonio. The arrangement then sees the aircraft flown to Jet Works in Denton, Texas (see sidebar), for third-party interior completion. The spokesman told AIN that the company is currently refining its production capacity and is committed to keeping the Martinsburg and San Antonio plants open. Approximately 60 employees work in Martinsburg. Despite the aircraft’s protracted development period (the program is now well into its third decade) and anemic initial delivery rate–only two have been delivered since the SJ30 was certified in 2005–more than 250 remain on order and production is sold out through 2011, according to the spokesman. The bulk of those will be manufactured beginning next year. The company has plans to deliver only three of the Williams FJ44-2A powered aircraft this year. More than 150 of those aircraft are on order by Emivest’s UK-based distributor, Action Aviation. The typical SJ30 interior features passenger seating for five plus two pilots, a refreshment cabinet with ice drawer, and cockpit/cabin and lavatory cabin hard pocket divider doors. A certain amount of customization is available. The owners of S/N 8, scheduled to be delivered this month, specified a Rosen entertainment package with DVD, moving map, five wireless headphones and two displays; XM satellite radio; an Alto speaker system; and veneer cabinets. Optional avionics include HR Radio with Selcal, coupled Garmin 500 with XM weather, dual mode-S with enhanced surveillance, cockpit CD player with isolate, cockpit speaker audio mute switch, cockpit voice recorder, and a second Honeywell FMS. Honeywell Primus Epic CDS remains the aircraft’s core avionics system. 

Jet Works Finishes First Emivest SJ30

Jet Works of Denton, Texas, has delivered the first Emivest SJ30 cabin completion. Jet Works v-p of sales and marketing Patrick Murphy said the company’s first SJ30 interior was completed on schedule, requiring 10 weeks “from the time we actually began work installing the supplied components to delivery, including exterior paint.”Murphy said the Texas completion and refurbishment center is capable of providing cabin components currently outsourced but will honor prior agreements. “We have a second aircraft already in the works and would love to be the exclusive green SJ30 completion center,” added Murphy. “And we expect to cut the completion cycle time considerably.” The second aircraft belongs to Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman, a private pilot who plans to obtain a type rating in the aircraft.   

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