Story ID: 
Third Diamond D-Jet Joins Flight-test Fleet
By: Chad Trautvetter
Caption: The third flight-test D-Jet completed a one-hour 25-minute maiden flight on Tuesday from Diamond Aircraft’s London, Ontario facility, with chief test pilot
Word Count: 180
The third flight-test D-Jet completed a one-hour 25-minute maiden flight on Tuesday from Diamond Aircraft’s London, Ontario facility, with chief test pilot Daniel Ribeiro at the controls. S/N 003 will be used for performance and handling quality refinement, as well as to further develop avionics, fuel, autopilot and anti-ice systems. The airplane will be retrofitted with the Williams FJ33-19 engine–which was recently announced as the production-configuration powerplant–later this year, but it won’t be the first D-Jet to fly with the uprated engine. Diamond D-Jet director of sales and marketing Mark Lee told AIN last week at the Sun ’n’ Fly-In that S/N 004 will be the first D-Jet to have the uprated turbofan when it flies this summer. Lee also said Diamond added four new avionics options for the Garmin G1000-equipped D-Jet: Garmin’s new synthetic vision system and weather radar; Becker ADF; and Honeywell KN63 DME. The D-Jet’s $1.38 million (July 2006 $) price tag will be increased by June, Lee said. Certification, including flight-into-known-icing approval, is slated for the second quarter of next year.