Production of the first customer SJ30-2 business jet has begun in Sino Swearingen's Martinsburg factory, and is scheduled to be completed in the autumn of this year.

Two more fuselages and wing sets will be built before the end of 2002, and 16 are slated for production in 2003. By the beginning of 2005 the facility is scheduled to be building wings and fuselages at the rate of one shipset per week. By the end of 2006 the anticipated rate is two shipsets per week. Delivery of this first SJ30-2 business jet to its customer is sched-uled for the third quarter of 2003.

The assembly of wings and fuselages in the Martinsburg facility represents a change from Sino Swearingen's original plan, and has brought production forward by around eight months. The company had originally planned to use a subcontractor in Spain, but this contract was cancelled last year.

Meanwhile, in San Antonio, work is proceeding on schedule to win a type certificate for the SJ30-2 by the end of this year. Sino Swearingen will then become the first all new company to certify a new business jet since Learjet did it in 1963. More than 150 SJ30-2 aircraft are now on order, secured with $75,000 non-refundable deposits, representing production well into the year 2005.