Sino Swearingen has delayed certification of its SJ30-2 business jet by a year because of a decision to bring the wing and fuselage manufacturing in-house. The original plan was for this to be carried out by Gamesa of Spain.

Speaking from the company’s San Antonio headquarters, director of corporate communications Mike Potts told EBAN: “In the course of the time period when they [Gamesa] built the five fuselages, we reached a

point where we just decided that we’d be better off if we had it in our own control.

“We had some issues; I'm sure they had some issues. We just decided it was better if we didn’t continue and they were in agreement.”

“It was a big decision and took some time to make. To be frank, the cost is really about a year-

and-a-half, in terms of what it will do to deliveries.

Sino says it negotiated a critical element at this point, in offering to buy the tooling from Gamesa.

This they accepted and the tooling has now been transported - at no small cost to Sino - to Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Said Potts: “There were roughly 26 ocean containers of tooling, some of them carrying very big pieces of equipment of more than seven and a half tonnes. You don’t just move this type of equipment around with impunity. In all, the decision to move the tooling to Martinsburg has worked out very well.”

Asked what customer reaction has been Potts said: “Disappointed but stoic. Obviously they’d like to have it now and we’d like to be delivering it now. Nobody’s more disappointed about this than we are.

“But we’ve maintained the order book quite solidly and I think part of the reason for this is that a lot of our customers are opting for this product because of the long range and high speed capability of the airplane. And in this price range, there’s no alternative product that delivers that.

“I can’t say we haven’t had anyone drop out but generally the order book has held together with 154 orders to date.”

Sino now expects certification of the SJ30-2 at the end of next year with first deliveries in about the same timeframe.

With this year’s NBAA Convention fast approaching, Mike Potts says he’s looking forward to a landmark event for Sino. He said: “We’re excited about this year’s show because we're going to have the airplane there for the first time. It’s our flight test airplane and it's ready to make its NBAA debut.”