New Zealand amphibious aircraft manufacturer Vickers Aircraft this week released a communique to the industry answering criticism over the development time of the Wave LSA.
The Wave, a high-wing, single-engined amphibian fitted with either a Rotax 915 or 916 engine, has been in development in NZ for 15 years, but is yet to deliver an airframe to a customer.
Vickers has completed most of the design work on the Wave including substantial progress on water and flight testing, and expects to roll-out the first completed Wave next year.
Vicker Aircraft CEO Paul Vickers pointed out that for the first three years of development, he was the only person working on the Wave, and that skilled workers with experience were hard to come by in the the early days of prototype construction. The company now has 20 workers, but the process has still been slow, but gradual.
Getting it right no matter how long has always been Vickers' philosophy, and he has never set target dates for milestones. However, he says that external roadblocks have gone a long way to extending the development time.
"New Zealand’s regulatory environment presents an additional set of challenges for Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) manufacturing," Vickers says. "Here, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)–similar to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)–requires LSA manufacturers to meet General Aviation (GA) manufacturing standards.
"Consequently, our company must adhere to rigorous standards and navigate various certification obstacles. The country’s stringent test pilot requirements, narrow the pool of qualified candidates for essential testing roles.
"Our approach from the beginning has been to construct the prototype with production tooling, molds, and processes. This approach aims to reduce variability in future production stages, though it requires significant up-front investment in research and development.
"Creating production-ready tooling, molds, and composite structures is a complex process. Many manufacturers prioritize design at the expense of manufacturability, but we have chosen to focus on both, with an emphasis on building production efficiencies from the outset.
"This approach has necessitated extensive trial and error, as well as the development of detailed manufacturing protocols, especially given our use of composite materials."
In addition to fundamental requirements, Vickers Aircraft has equipped the Wave with some unique features for a civil amphibian, including automatic wing-folding, anti-flip landing gear, and water thrusters.
"Integrating these innovations on an amphibious aircraft, while staying within the weight constraints of the LSA category, adds another layer of engineering complexity," Vickers explains. "Yet, these features are critical to achieving the performance and usability targets we have set for the Wave.
"With all technical, regulatory, and design challenges considered, financing remains the ongoing priority. The process of securing capital to support long-term development is as complex as the technical aspects of the project.
"However, these efforts are essential to delivering an aircraft that will meet the high standards of safety, performance, and regulatory compliance in 2025, and this is why choosing the correct investors, that share our vision, is as critical as choosing the correct carbon fiber."
Vickers Aircraft recently completed water thruster testing, which it described as "an outstanding success". This system enables the Wave to be manoeuvred on the water with the propeller engine shut off.
Some flight testing on design elements to improve performance, handling and aesthetics is still to be done.
The company is targeting the US market as a priority, and expects to have a sales and distribution network operating there by the first quarter of 2025, and US manufacturing locations selected a few months later.
Vickers will still not commit to a target date for the first post-production flight, only to say that it will happen next year.