The Malibu Meridian is on schedule to begin production in February 2000, New Piper announced at NBAA on October 12. The Meridian prototype made its first flight on 21 August, 1998. Since then, three additional production conforming prototypes have been manufactured and placed in the flight test programme. Together, the four prototypes have logged 340 flights and nearly 500 hours.\rA critical element in the Meridian programme, according to Matt Amundson, Meridian technical programme manager, is the fact that the three newest prototypes were built on the assembly line, with New Piper's production staff using the hard tooling it designed for full-scale production. "Our prototypes were not built by hand," said Amundson. "We made the commitment to hard tooling early in the process and are ready to build aircraft for delivery. We expect to have completed certification and made the first deliveries by mid-2000."\rEquipment for the Meridian will be the dual Garmin GNS 530, the Meggitt Avionics engine instrument display system, and the S-TEC System 55 autopilot. An optional Meggitt Avionics electronic flight display system is also available. "We really don't expect to see many Meridians delivered without this option," said Amundson. "It puts the Meridian in the world of the true glass cockpit."