As a person of the very first generation of regional jets that flew some two decades just before all those created by Canadair, Embraer, and Dornier in the 1990s, the Aerospatiale SN.601 Corvette straddled the line among the company and regional marketplaces and was therefore the smallest to have served commercially.
Its seed was planted when the French governing administration, continuing its system of re-establishing the country’s submit-war aviation marketplace started with piston airliners these kinds of as the Breguet Deux Ponts, the Sud-Est Armagnac, and the Sud-Ouest Bretagne, asked for that plane manufacturers submit proposals for a compact twin-turbofan liaison/coach. Then-separate Sud-Aviation and Nord-Aviation elected to jointly develop an executive jet specified the SN.600 Diplomate in January of 1968 when French indigenous SNECMA designed a ideal powerplant for it, the M49 Larzac.
Displayed for the very first time in design type at that year’s Hanover Air Show, it showcased what turned the typical company jet configuration-a small wing, a narrow fuselage, a ahead, remaining doorway, swept aerodynamic surfaces, and two aft-mounted turbofans. It most closely resembled the Cessna Quotation 500. It also had quite early and really smaller-potential regional jet application.
Predicted gross sales, which laterproved unrealistically inflated, were being envisioned to range some 400 from worldwide operators over and higher than the initial 60 envisioned from the French armed service.
Reflecting its joint Sud- and Nord-Aviation corporation origins, the aircraft, with its “SN” designation, to start with took to the sky in prototype variety on July 16, 1970, but the lengthy enhancement of its intended M49 powerplant necessitated the use of two 2,200 thrust-pound Pratt and Whitney Canada JT15D-1s in its place. When its maiden flight was successful, its examination application did not go on in this vein. For the duration of stall trials 8 months later on, on March 22, it crashed, ending in its demise.
A protracted interval of redesign, ahead of which Sud- and Nord-Aviation merged to variety Aerospatiale, resulted in a 5.5-foot extended fuselage, supplying the now-redesignated SN.601 Corvette 100 a 45.4-foot over-all size a 42-foot wingspan, to which suggestion gasoline tanks could be optionally installed to increase array two 2,300 thrust-pound JT15D-4 turbofans and a 13,450-pound gross body weight. Vary, with its most payload, was just in excess of 1,000 miles.
So-configured, the second and third prototypes respectively flew on December 20, 1972 and March 7, 1973. The 1st manufacturing instance followed accommodate 8 months later, on November 9, and French certification was obtained a different 6 months just after that, on May 28, 1974.
The type’s dilemma plagued software was hardly served by level of competition, especially on its govt facet. The similarly configured, French-intended Falcon 20, distributed by means of Pan American Falcon Jets, savored a model identify recognition edge and was ready to penetrate the coveted US marketplace.
Attempts to conclude identical agreements were being unsuccessful, precisely with Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV), Piper Plane, and its possess Atlanta-based mostly US Corvette Integrated North American aircraft completion, revenue, and distribution centre. Whilst its closing a person, with Oklahoma-based mostly Air Center, Inc., seemed a lot more promising, it by no means acquired a solitary generation-common plane out of the meant seventy.
As the third most highly-priced business enterprise jet right after the Cessna Quotation 500 and the Learjet 24, it was subjected to value overruns and the French govt gave serious considered to cancelling the plan.
After receiving only 24 orders, Aerospatiale did just that. A report produced by the government’s Court of Audit said that the company’s management lacked ample comprehending of the pitfalls included in the encounter of competition from similar US, British, and other French models, expressing, “It is particular that the Corvette application is, and will continue to be, a key professional and fiscal catastrophe.”
In its regional jet role, it located confined software by 3rd-stage carriers looking for to offer you position-to-level, hub-bypassing support on routes too slim to support greater plane.
Air Alpes, for instance, which took shipping of two Corvette 100s in 1974 and another two in 1975, operated routes on its very own behalf from Paris and these, this sort of as Lyons-Brussels, on Air France’s, its plane appearing in its livery on one particular facet and its very own on its other. Accommodating a dozen passengers, they showcased two rows of single seats up coming to the 5 oval windows on both facet, divided by a central aisle. The cockpit rely was two, but there have been no flight attendants in the cabin.
Other operators provided Air Alsace, Air Champagne, and TAT Touraine Air Transportation in France, and Sterling Airways in Denmark. Airbus Industrie applied 5 aircraft as corporate shuttles concerning 1981 and 2009.
Although an 18-passenger, Corvette 200, with a 6.7-foot fuselage stretch, was proposed, it hardly ever proceeded outside of the concept phase, because its initial 100 collection ceased output in 1977 immediately after 40 aircraft had been crafted, ending France’s second worst business airliner plan following that of the 150-passenger Dassault-Breguet Mercure 100, whose creation run was only 12, which includes two prototypes.
Plagued by prototype accident a very long, corrective development interval a improve in powerplant sort pricey procedure failure to build a North American distribution location strong level of competition administration ignorance and ability that proved insufficient, the Aerospatiale SN.601 Corvette nevertheless served as an example of one of the a few regional jet origins: an all-new design and style, the conversion of an current turboprop a person, or the use of a business jet system.
