Daher-Socata Puts New Twin NTX Project on Hold

Daher-Socata’s NTX project, a new twin the company has been considering since 2008, “is in standby mode,” airplane division senior v-p Nicolas Chabbert told AIN this week at EBACE.

AIN understands that Daher-Socata has considered both a twin turboprop and a twinjet under the NTX project banner. Without referring specifically to one option or the other, Chabbert said Daher-Socata is not excluding any possibility. However, the company has already ruled out resurrecting the Grob SPn program after some in-depth evaluations, including flight tests of the SPn prototype.

Chabbert does not anticipate any Daher-Socata engineers resuming work on the NTX before late 2015. Such a program would use a lot of human resources, he said. In the meantime, the company is busy with aerostructure design and manufacturing for other OEMs, such as Airbus, Dassault and Eurocopter.