Signature Flight Support and its parent BBA Aviation trumpeted business aviation projects worth nearly $10 million here Wednesday.

Signature is embarking on a major expansion at London Luton Airport, nearly tripling hangar space there to 70,000 square feet-enough for six Boeing Business Jets at once. Project cost, with 15,000-square-foot office complex, is about $7.5 million.

In the South of France, Signature is pioneering an FBO at the Toulon-Hyères airport, midway between Marseille and Nice. The project has the full support of the local chamber of commerce and development authorities, which want to establish the two-runway facility as a business aviation hub.

Signature will start with a temporary building at Toulon-Hyères to be opened next spring or early summer, followed by a permanent installation similar in size to Signature Le Bourget, which has a hangar of approximately 24,000 square feet. Project cost was roughly estimated at $1 million to $2 million by Signature Europe managing director Jonathon Soper and colleagues here.

"We now have approval to accept flights coming in directly from the U.S.A.," Soper said yesterday. Toulon-Hyères will offer helicopter service to Côte d'Azur destinations, he said, and there are plans for eventual rail connections to the airport there as well.

Signature expects to maintain an exclusive FBO position at Toulon-Hyères behind its partnership with the regional authorities there, Soper said.

At Luton, Signature will break ground in July for its new hangar, which will take about a year to complete. Signature's existing Hangar 125 will be razed.

"We've seen a trend toward larger aircraft arriving at the field," said Trevor King, who has charge of Signature operations there.

"This is the first major investment we've had since 1985 or 1986," King said yesterday.

"We have been very, very congested," he said. The Luton expansion "will make life a lot easier for all of us working on the ramp."