It might be late but it's still a "kick ass airplane"-that's
Brad Hatt's assessment of the Hawker Horizon. Wearing his pilot's
hat for a moment, Hatt eulogized the Horizon's sparkling performance
which is outstripping the company's predictions. The Horizon is
emerging as a very high-speed aircraft but with a miserly fuel
burn and, in a program update here at NBAA, Hatt could not say
enough about the soundness of the aircraft's fundamental design,
aerodynamics and handling. Singled out for a special mention was
the aircraft's wing, developed and supplied by Fuji in Japan,
and cited by Hatt as one of the best examples of wing design to
be found anywhere.
Throughout an upbeat presentation Raytheon still had an elephant
in the conference room-the question of why the Horizon is so late
goes unanswered. The program was launched at NBAA in 1996 and
the first aircraft should have been delivered well over two years
ago.
Hawker insists that the aircraft is firmly fixed to its revised
delivery schedule with certification expected around May/June
2004 and handover of fully certified jets before the end of that
year. Hawker has three development aircraft flying, with a fourth
due to take to the air later this year. The first Horizon flew
in August 2001, but the test fleet has still only undertaken 50%
of its test flying objectives over the course of 700 hours in
the air.
Raytheon says that the program is not under-resourced and also
refutes suggestions that delays have been caused by the Honeywell
Epic cockpit fit. Other Epic users, such as Dassault and Embraer,
have already admitted that there have been problems and delays
with Epic, but Raytheon's Brad Hatt says "we really don't
have any issues with Honeywell."
Whether that means that the Epic fit is working as advertised remains unclear
because Hatt also says that Epic has been somewhat troublesome and
that Honeywell has been "right there with us" in dealing
with those troubles. Asked if there is a compensation agreement
between Raytheon and Honeywell for any delays that might be attributable
to the Epic system, Hatt would say only that Raytheon has performance
and delivery guarantees from all its suppliers and Honeywell is
no different.
