Story ID: 3073112alerts
Diamond D-Jet Aerodynamic Design Frozen
By: Matt Thurber
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Word Count: 207
Diamond Aircraft brought D-Jet prototype S/N 003 to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh last week, displaying publicly for the first time the jet’s new upswept wingtips. “At this point the aerodynamic configuration is frozen,” said Diamond president and CEO Peter Maurer. The new wingtips have “a positive effect on the stall speed and roll control, but also the overall aesthetics,” he added.

The D-Jet program, which received new funding after Dubai’s Medrar Financial Group bought a majority share of Diamond’s Canadian operations late last year, has made recent progress. Flight-test time is about 700 hours.

“Our recent flights have focused on verifying compliance with the FAR 23 flight requirements,” Maurer said, “specifically handling, stability and control throughout the weight and balance envelope, tests of stall speeds and stall characteristics at various weight and balance points and with different system configurations, basic system testing, expansion of the speed envelope to Mmo of 0.56 (346 ktas) and much detail development work, such as fine tuning the control forces and determination of the stick pusher activation point.”

Construction of S/N 004 production tooling is under way. After this D-Jet flies, certification should take about a year. Deliveries are now planned for the third quarter of 2014.