Jabiru Aircraft has launched on a celebration of their 25th anniversary that starts at AUSFLY and is planned to wrap-up after Natfly next Easter.
Australia’s first composite light sport aircraft burst on the aviation scene out of Bundaberg, QLD, in 1988, the product of a man who wanted to make flying cheaper for everybody.
Sales and Marketing Manager, Sue Woods, has been part of the journey since the beginning, and reflected on the last 25 years.
“It was my father Rodney Stiff who started the company, it was his dream,” she told Australian Flying in the field at AUSFLY. “He came from the cane harvester industry, he was an engineer, and he retired from the company, and he always says the fishing is no good in Bundaberg, so he took up flying.
“He was wondering what he was going to do in his retirement, so he virtually got a sketch of a Cessna, put it on a photocopy machine and reduced the size, and [made] it into a Jabiru. He started off with a canard design, but it was going to be too expensive ... and he wanted something that would be acceptable to everyday consumers, so he chose the high-wing Cessna look to base his designs on, but made it out of composite materials, which was a very new thing at the time, but that made it light and inexpensive.
“He wanted to make flying affordable, but at a greater level of safety than was available in light sports planes that were around at the time. That was his motivation.”
Indeed, Rod Stiff’s design was so innovative that getting approval to produce and fly the first Jabirus was a battle for CASA as well.
Sue Woods: “It was very difficult to get approval to fly back then because you had to do it all through CASA, and composite was an unknown entity to them back then. It was difficult back then, but it’s proved to be a very good thing because the Jabiru now has a very strong airframe.”
Most recently, the company make a huge step with the successful development of a twin-engined Jabiru, which flew recently in South Africa. It’s a step that has the Bundaberg company buzzing.
“Our twin has come on-line so that’s exciting,” Sue enthuses. “It will be in the experimental category, but you’ll need a twin endorsement to fly it. It has two four-cylinder engines, but they are so close together, so flying in the asymmetric configuration is not difficult. You can fly them asymmetrically, hands-off at 70 knots.
“The test flight in South Africa went very well and unspectacularly, which is how we like it!”
However, the market Jabiru operates in today is very different from the one they had when they started, and the future is throwing up some challenges for them.
“We’re facing very uncertain times in this industry; a lot has changed since 25 years ago. The dollar has dropped about 30% recently [to the $US], so that’s made our aircraft 30% more expensive in overseas countries. And there’s so many sharp and shiny aircraft coming out of the Czech Republic at the moment where labour costs are much lower. So it is a very different market, but we’ve adapted to those changes.”
With close to 2000 flying in Australia now, the Jabiru design has to be rated as a great success story, and it’s one that Sue is reminded of regularly as she flies around the country.
“What keeps us going is coming to shows like this and seeing a whole row of Jabirus, and his [Rod Stiff’s] dream has come true, he wanted to make flying affordable … when you’re flying you hear Jabirus on the radio everywhere, and seeing so many people enjoying their aeroplanes, and camping, and going around Australia.
“They have fun in them … that’s what we’re for: to have fun.”