Stratos 714 Flight Testing Continues

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The Stratos 714 VLJ prototype, designed as a 400 knot, 4-6 place jet, made its second test flight late last month from its home base of Redmond, Oregon, in anticipation of a public debut later this year. Carsten Sundin, Engineering Manager at Stratos, told AVweb of the flight test performance, “We are continuing with expected minor aerodynamic adjustments to dial in the stick control forces. The Stratos 714 is controlled by a side stick and it has a relatively large flight envelope in terms of speed, altitude and also CG range. As expected, this requires some fine tuning of control stick forces.” Stratos expects to fly the new jet, N403KT, to Oshkosh and NBAA this year to gin up excitement from investors and prospective buyers, but they’re not taking deposits. Stratos CEO Michael Lemaire told AVweb, “We are privately funded for the prototype phase, during which we are planning to explore the full flight envelope and draw conclusions for the certification stage. We are not yet funded for the certification phase. At present, we have no plan to take deposits towards deliveries, which are still many years away.”

With the 714, Stratos is targeting a market adjacent to its obvious competitor, the Cirrus Vision Jet, with a similarly sized but noticeably faster airplane: “Our design target was to cruise at 400 knots, carry four people comfortably with their baggage, and with that payload, travel as far as 1,500 nautical miles,” says Stratos. The published performance specifications for the Cirrus list capacity for five adults at a top speed of 300 knots. The Cirrus is propelled by an 1,800-LBF William FJ33 turbofan, while the Stratos is built around the much larger 2,900-LBF Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D.

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