Symphony Aircraft Production to Restart

Symphony and Weatherly aircraft production to restart

The lead investor for the North American Factory for Technologically Advanced Aircraft, a company created in 2008 to restart production of the two-seat Symphony SA-160 piston single, says a new factory in Louisiana could be operational by the end of the year to build several aircraft models.
In addition to 160hp (120kW) and 200hp versions of the Symphony, NAFTAA chief investor Lou Simons says the facility will also produce the Weatherly 620B, an aircraft designed for agricultural applications and firefighting that was first produced in 1961. NAFTAA purchased the assets of Weatherly Aircraft Nevada, a wholly owned subsidiary of MP2 Technologies, in August and Symphony's assets in early 2008.
There are roughly 200 of the Pratt & Whitney 985R radial-powered 620Bs in operation in the USA. The design is based on the Fairchild PT-19.
"The reason we bought the assets is that much of the assembly is quite similar to Symphony," says Simons, including a steel cage fuselage and aluminium wings. "There's a great deal of commonality," he says. "Both will be low-production aircraft. If the sales of crop dusters are slow, we'll build Symphonys, and vice versa."