FAL FURIO FLIES

[Guest Fred Bear]

New Zealand light aircraft manufacturer Falcomposite’s Furio composite two-seat made its first flight from Auckland’s Ardmore Airport on February 6.

 

The first test flight lasted approximately 45 minutes and saw the aircraft perform a number of handling and stalling tests, reaching speeds of up to 198kt. According to Falcomposite’s Giovanni Nustrini, the aircraft, “outperformed our expectations.â€Â

 

The Furio is a two-seater carbon fibre aerobatic kit aircraft designed and built in New Zealand. The kit itself comes with less than 30 pieces and the time to fully assembly including systems is said to be under 1000 hours. The basic kit costs NZ$150,000 (A$130,852) with an additional completion kit including brakes, landing gear, fuel systems and electrical loom is available for NZ$19,500 (A$17,011).

 

The first Furio kit is due to ship in May this year, and the company has already sold 10 production slots. When production ramps up in September this year, the company hopes to produce three to four kits per month.

 

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

This is an interesting little story which is more connected to RAA aircraft than it might first appear.

 

Giovanni Nustrini is the ANZ agent for Tecnam. As I recall his father used to fly a Falco in air races in the 40s and 50s. The Furio is based on the Falco and was expected to be furiously fast.

 

Interesting development. As I recall some of the initial development work received a Foundation for Research, Science and Technology grant in NZ. These grants are government grants aimed at developing new technology.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Yes, I heard something about it Mike that's why I thought I would post and see if anyone else had further info. Thanks for the information ;)