Two and a half years from the beginning of the project, the Wolfsberg-Evektor Raven 257 is nearing completion and first flight at Kunovice in the Czech Republic. EBAN's Daniel Cook spoke at length with the aircraft's designer and ceo of Wolfsberg Aircraft Corporation, Alec Clark.

"We are making rapid progress. If anyone was to come and look at the Raven at the moment, they would think it was finished. But I know otherwise!" he laughed. "I was talking to the CAA about it recently, all the usual details. I'm scheduling the first flight, which is not just a target, I think it will happen, for the third week in August."

The small twin engine commercial aircraft started life as a Belgian/UK collaboration but its implementation became wholly Czech with the involvement of Letov Air in Prague and Evektor-Aerotechnik in Kunovice.

A recent press release about Raven says that "great interest" is being shown by GA operators in the Caribbean, Pacific Islands, Canada and Australia. So what of European flyers? "We have actually had more interest in Europe than from faraway places, perhaps because it is nearer. We have got about 224 people who we are in pretty regular correspondence with. About ten per cent of these are in Europe. I think we'll make our first sales in Europe," he said. The manufacturers will only accept firm orders for the aircraft after completion of production plans, expected to be in September this year.

Clark said that he is not worried by the host of single engine utility aircraft which he claims can only get limited operations' approval, given current regulations. "The Raven 257 is a follow-up to the Britten-Norman Islander aircraft," he claimed. "Fortunately we are treading in its footsteps.

"Theoretically, B-N are still manufacturing Islanders, they probably sold four or five last year. We own the competitive airfield on the Isle of Wight, Sandown, which is only two or three miles from B-N's base. They are having some kind of dispute at their airfield at the moment, so they are using ours. Desmond Norman, one of the founders of B-N, I think I can say is an old friend of mine. I have known him for thirty years, and we regularly agree or agree to disagree. It is a kind of hot and cold friendship but we do talk to each other regularly.

"Anyway, I do know quite a bit about the Islander and the history of the thing. We have definitely made this aircraft to overcome some of the less desirable points of the Islander," Clark stated.

"The Islander has a very narrow fuselage. Thirty years ago when the Islander made its debut, things were different, standards were more acceptable to passengers. They were happier to get into a small aircraft than they are today. I was talking to someone fairly recently in the Caribbean, who runs two or three Islanders. They experience reluctance on the part of passengers to get into them - they don't think that they're safe.

Each year it gets more difficult to get the passengers into the aircraft. Our aircraft really does have space inside," he said. The Raven will be on display at Farnborough 2000 and the exhibit will have facilities to compare the fuselage of the Raven with a Cessna Caravan and the Islander - "So you will be able to see how much bigger the Raven's fuselage is," Clark added.

In terms of cargo, will the Raven be a useful worker? "Very much so," Clark affirmed. "It has a back door so you can put in goods on pallets. In the whole transport scene, ten years ago, people were humping things onto trucks, but today everything is put onto a pallet and lifted on a fork-lift truck. The aircraft has to be big enough to put the pallet in, and that's what we've done. It's not particularly clever, just common sense."

Another simple but telling feature is said to be the Raven's twin piston engines: "People who run Islander-type aircraft are small operators; I sometimes wonder how they do it because they have a tough time making it all work."

Clark went on to do some number crunching: "Roughly speaking, piston engines generating 600hp, in round figures amounts to $50,000. The same output from turbines would cost you $250,000," he stated. "Plus, fuel consumption is almost double. Pistons have an advantage. Of course, now people are talking about diesels, but I think that's a few years off."

The Raven 257 is Belgian financed and Czech developed: EBAN enquired why Clark, who hails from the Isle of Wight, could not look to home to develop the aircraft. "Don't talk to me about that!" he groaned. "I risk sounding like a very pessimistic character. When Fokker went under three years ago, I thought this would give me plenty of opportunity to find a lot of enthusiastic, talented people, and I just didn't. They got rid of 7,000 people, within about eight weeks, they had all dissipated into the woods, or something. Maybe that's the reason Fokker went under."

"The only place you can find talent and enthusiasm today is in the hobby industry," Clark finished.

The Raven 257 will have a maximum range of 715nm, will accommodate up to seven passengers, and will cruise at 265km/hour at 75 per cent power. It is expected to sell for $760,000.