Emivest SJ30 - Development

Development

Ed Swearingen announced a new design for a light twin business jet in October 1986, the SA-30 Fanjet. The SA-30 was to be a 6 to 8 person aircraft powered by two Williams FJ44 turbofans and with a highly swept wing of relatively small area. It was planned to be more efficient than contemporary business jets, and to sell for $2 million. In October 1988 an agreement was signed with Gulfstream Aerospace with the SA-30 to be manufactured and sold by Gulfstream as the Gulfstream Gulfjet. Gulfstream withdrew from the project in September 1989, causing Swearingen to get backing from the Jaffe Group of San Antonio, with the aircraft to be built in a factory next to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. This resulted in the aircraft again being redesignated as the SJ-30 (later "SJ30-1"). The first SJ-30 flew on 13 February 1991, and was demonstrated at the 1991 Paris Air Show, but development ground to a halt when withdrawal of financial support from the state of Delaware.

The program was rescued by Lockheed, who arranged a joint venture between Swearington and Taiwanese investors as part of the offset agreement for Taiwan's purchase of the F-16 fighters. The Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corporation was set up, with the aircraft now to be built at Martinsburg, West Virginia.

It was subsequently decided to modify the original design as the SJ30-2, with a 4 ft 4in (1.32 m) longer fuselage and wingspan increased by six foot (1.83 m). This promised a signifiant increase in range. The prototype was modified and flew in the new configuration on 8 November 1996, and with the intended FJ44-2a engines on 4 September 1997. Amidst construction delays caused by funding issues, two "as-designed" pre-production aircraft (serial numbers 002, performing the aerodynamics/stability & control testing; and 003, performing systems testing) were built and the design entered certification testing. However, in April 2003, S/N 002 crashed during flight testing, causing further delays in the certification program. After a series of additional design changes, S/N 004, originally slated as the functionality & maintainability (F & M) test article, took over the testing role of S/N 002 (with S/N 005 taking on the F & M role), and after years of flight testing, the SJ30-2 was finally certified by the FAA in October 2005. The first customer delivery took place in early 2007.

The SJ30 is in the "light" jet class, and has the fastest cruise speeds and longest range of any aircraft in that class. The aircraft can seat up to six passengers plus one pilot. A unique feature of this aircraft is that it maintains a 'sea level cabin' up to 41,000 ft (due to its 12 psi differential pressure) thereby reducing fatigue due to high cabin altitude on long journeys.

Sino Swearingen was acquired by investors from Dubai in 2008. The Dubai-based company will become the majority shareholder in Sino Swearingen, with the Taiwanese government and private investors taking minority stakes. The company name was changed to the Emivest Aerospace Corporation.

The order book for the $7.5 million aircraft was reported to be largely unaffected by the funding setbacks, with the tally reportedly exceeding 300 units including 159 from Action Aviation.

On October 26, 2010, Emivest filed for bankruptcy after being unable to find further funds to continue operations.

The original SJ30-1 prototype was on display at the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, Texas when it was flooded by Hurricane Ike.

On April 7, 2011, a judge approved sale of Emivest assets to MT LLC of Utah, an ownership group affiliated with Metalcraft Technologies, Inc. of Cedar City, Utah, a parts supplier for the SJ30. According to a news article, Emivest vice president Mark Fairchild stated that according to his understanding, MT planned to maintain Emivest as a jet manufacturer, though he didn't know any details.

As of June 15, 2011, Metalcraft Technologies, the Cedar City, Utah-based company that purchased Emivest out of bankruptcy, MT LC, announced that the new company name would be SyberJet Aircraft. Metalcraft also owns the SJ30 type certificate.