Farnborough-Aircraft.com has overcome investment problems it was experiencing at the beginning of March, and is now on the verge of moving to new offices at Pyestock. Consequently, EBAN’s Richard Evans found ceo Richard Noble in buoyant mood at EBACE 2001, when discussing his baby, the F1.

Noble says the investment turnaround for March was nothing short of dramatic. “It’s probably best described as just-in-time finance,” he said. “The first two weeks in March saw the start of the stockmarket shivers and I got seriously worried, it really frightened me because suddenly all the inquiries stopped. I thought, this is the end of the project – this is it.”

Two weeks later, said Noble, things were already looking up. “It suddenly started again with a great shove. I think people are getting a bit fed up with putting their money into the stockmarket, letting other people play with it and hoping they come up with a good return at the end.

“The people supporting us have made a bit of money in the last year and would like to put it into something that is interesting. What we’re learning from the internet money is that it’s very steady and very reliable. Fifty per cent of the project is funded by unsolicited investments coming in via the web.”

Come June 1, Farnborough-Aircraft.com will have left its current residence for another location on the northern side of the airfield, Pyestock. Spokesman Melvyn Hiscock told EBAN: “If we’d gone to some of the places which were mentioned, Boscombe Down for example, we’d have lost people because they wouldn’t have wanted to travel half way across Southern England to get to work. So this is a great solution for us.”

The F1 has been heralded by its creators as the black cab of the skies, picking up people from their office or residence, transferring them to smaller, lesser known airfields, flying them to the airfield of their choice and transferring them once again to their final destination.

Said Noble: “We see the aeroplane operating largely as a taxi service. In other words, it may start off with one person who needs to go to Rome. He enters this on our website and all the various operators come back with bids. He selects the bid he wants, then starts off on that flight. He may well decide he doesn’t necessarily want to travel on an exclusive flight, so the system will do its best to try and find additional passengers.

“We think operators will want to charge around $4 per statute mile for the aircraft and you can compare that with something like a Lear 45 which seems to vary between $6 and $8. The Lear is 100 miles per hour faster but it’s got to operate off long runways, which are less abundant. So our aircraft, even though it’s 100 miles an hour shorter, will actually do the entire trip just as fast, if not faster.”

Two prototypes of the FI – which will operate as a single engine pilot and have a 4-seat club configuration – are due to be built by 2003, with first flight in the same year. Certification is expected between 2004-5.

With regard to single engine IFR, Hiscock said: “It is safer than twin engine piston, there’s no doubt about it. When you start looking at the published statistics that are being put together by people far more qualified to comment than us, you will see that the number of fatalities per flying hour for single engined IFR aircraft, are up there with the safest.

“I don’t know when it will be given the green light in this country but I would imagine that by the time we’re up and running with this aeroplane, it won’t be far off.”