Warrior (Aero-Marine) Ltd. and its US subsidiary, developers of the Centaur (a new concept amphibious light aircraft) have received financial support from the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Maine Technology Institute (MTI) in the US to build a prototype for flight demonstration purposes.

The DTI Smart Exceptional Award (£450,000) was awarded out of which only ten are nominated every year. The MTI award offers a further £350,000. A spokesperson said: “In addition, private investors have demonstrated their faith in the programme by committing more than £2,000,000 in cash and services. This gives the programme some £2,800,000 to build the first aircraft.

According to the company, a successful test programme has already been carried out using dynamically accurate fifth scale models and Warrior is now confirming the aircraft’s design using CATIA software.

Warrior has also placed its first contracts for fuselage and wing tooling. The fuselage, wing and other structural components are being built by Maine Composites of the US and will be shipped to the UK for final assembly by Warrior at the certification facilities of CMC in Wiltshire.

The spokesperson also confirmed: “The maiden flight of the Centaur will take place from Old Sarum in the first quarter of 2003. It will also be a prominent exhibitor at many trade shows during the rest of that year.”

James Labouchere, managing director of Warrior and the Centaur creator, said: “Centaur is now a go programme thanks to these two awards and the faith of our private investors. This funding enables us to produce and demonstrate the prototype, which will take us a long way to certification.

“We now need further funds to market the Centaur and the business opportunity, and to fund the certification programme.”

The company hopes that the Centaur will replace existing seaplanes, land planes, helicopters and boats in an effort to expand beyond and independent of

airfield constraints. “Centaur can carry its designated payload a greater distance at a lower seat/mile cost than current comparable seaplanes because of the efficient hull and wing design and lower power requirement,” said the spokesperson.

Although Centaur claims to have received a great deal of interest for the model, this has yet to transfer into firm orders. It hopes that the construction of the prototype will facilitate this aim.