WASHINGTON \u2014 Textron AirLand has begun a limited production run of its Scorpion jet in advance of a first flight later this year, its chief executive officer announced Thursday.
Textron developed Scorpion as a high-performing but inexpensive ISR and strike asset, costing $20 million to acquire and clocking in at $3,000 per flight hour, according to the company. Donnelly did not specify how many Scorpion jets would be produced in the initial production batch, but they will be build in the same facility in Wichita, Kansas, where\u00a0the company previously built two planes. Only the first aircraft has flown so far, but that one is not considered production representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have a lot of customer conversations going on right now. We think there\u2019s a number of opportunities to demonstrate this aircraft,” Donnelly said. “We have a lot of customers that want to fly the aircraft, and that\u2019s really what led us to want to accelerate both the expense side as well to \u2026 initiate a limited rate of production. Because we need to have these assets available for customer demonstrations, customer flights and hopefully, eventually, customer sales.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Producing a limited batch of aircraft will also help validate the company\u2019s manufacturing processes and support Air Force requirements as the service assesses the jet, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
The service in July announced it had signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Textron to conduct an airworthiness assessment at the company\u2019s expense. The goal of the review is to make it easier for US defense contractors to internationally sell military aircraft that are not planned for procurement by the US services. Donnelly noted that he had seen an uptick in customer interest since the agreement was announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I think as we\u2019ve established this CRADA with the Air Force and now have a path to certification, the level of activity with customers has stepped up considerably,” he said. “It\u2019s the right time for us to step up and demonstrate this aircraft and its performance capability and get much more aggressive about the marketing and test flights.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While there is no firm date for the aircraft to complete its airworthiness assessment, Donnelly said Textron personnel are working with officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to finalize detailed test plans and review data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the company has also conducted weapons testing of the jet in preparation for the first flight of a production-conforming jet, which Donnelly said will occur “very soon.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Scorpion recently completed its first weapons demonstration at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, a company statement said. During the event, an airborne laser on the Scorpion\u2018s L-3 WESCAM\u2019s MX-15Di sensor suite guided Hydra-70 unguided 2.75-inch rockets, BAE Systems\u2019 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) and AGM-114F Hellfire missiles to their targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The acceleration of Scorpion testing and production \u2014 which resulted in higher expenses than had originally been planned for in this stage of the program \u2014 has led to some pressure on earnings, Donnelly conceded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is certainly not, still, a sure bet,” but Textron would not take the financial risk if it wasn\u2019t seeing strong interest from customers that indicated the time was right to start production and more aggressively pursue marketing and test flying the aircraft, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One potential path to a future contract is the UK\u2019s Air Support to Defence Operational Training program, Bill Anderson, president of Textron AirLand, told Defense News this July. This summer, Thales and QinetiQ selected Textron\u2019s Scorpion as the aircraft in its proposed offering for the contract. According to a QinetiQ news release, the Scorpion was chosen for its high performance, reliability and low acquisition costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The company has seen an uptick in customer interest in flight demonstrations since the Air Force agreed to assess the aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3384],"class_list":["post-41838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-training-sim"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"YSIKGWTD4VGPVL5CSMENX3BRIA","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2016\/10\/20\/textron-begins-a-limited-production-run-of-scorpion-jet-but-no-contract-yet\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n