Aircraft
Farnborough t-prop facing fiscal hurdles
Farnborough-Aircraft.com, the UK company that is developing the single-turboprop F1 air-taxi, business and utility aircraft, quietly withdrew from the NBAA

Farnborough-Aircraft.com, the UK company that is developing the single-turboprop F1 air-taxi, business and utility aircraft, quietly withdrew from the NBAA Convention even before the show was canceled.

Because of low financial and labor resources, a preliminary design review–earlier set for this month–has been delayed to next September. Conceding there is “an awful lot to do on the bigger-than-envisaged” project, a spokesman said finances are “critical” and that expenditure would “rise dramatically.” He acknowledged that Farnborough-Aircraft.com, which dubs itself one of the “first new-generation parallel aerospace industries,” has lived “fairly hand to mouth from just-in-time financing.” The project is “as complex as a small airliner. It has been a big learning curve” and the start-up company has faced “a series of smaller problems,” the spokesman added.