By ANN Correspondent Rob Milford

Four years have flown by since the aircraft was introduced… and IBIS Aerospace hit NBAA with their Ae-270 "Spirit" this past week.

So much buzz over an 8 passenger, 2 crew, singled engined turbo-prop, and that buzz has translated into 76 orders on the books!

The aircraft arrived for the first time in North America on Saturday, October 4th, landing at Goose bay, Labrador, before heading south to Orlando. Senior test pilot Ladislav Snydr told a compelling story about the 33 and a half hours flying from the Czech Republic to central Florida, covering 4,957 miles and burning about 1,450 gallons, which translates to 42.5gph.

Snydr said there were no glitches flying across Europe, to Scotland, and then Iceland on the first day, to Greenland on the second day, and after a fueling stop, attempted to make Canada, but were running smack into 140 kt headwinds! Even with the derated PT-6-66A putting out 750shp,after 5 hours of flight, they turned around, and made Greenland in less than 2 hours. The second attempt to cross to Canada succeeded, and a few hours later they were in Toronto, and cleared customs in Detroit. An easy hop from Motown to Mousetown followed, and even with it's zinc chromate and ruby red finish, it was easy to see the lines, and once up the ladder, to see all the space inside the Spirit.

After 6 years, the first production aircraft arrived "au natural" to be shown on the ramp in Orlando, before a flight to Uvalde, Texas and the completion center at Southstar Aircraft Interiors. Back in the Czech Republic, the first three prototypes have amassed 760 flight-test hours, with an amazing 60,000 hours of fatigue testing, or the equivalent of three life cycles of flight.

Along with the arrival of the first production aircraft, Ibis continues to add distributors, including East Coast Jet Center in Stuart, Florida. That brings to 10 the total number of distributors, worldwide. The company feels pretty confident that the FAA certification will come by the end of the year, with FAR-23 single-pilot operation, and will be eligible for FAR part 135 operations.

For those operating the Spirit, Orlando-based Simcon will be providing training for pilots and mechanics.

One of the truly "OH WOW" elements will be a FlightLogic Synthetic Vision dual screen EFIS system from Chelton. It combines HUD symbology with a forward-looking 3-D terrain capability. The company hails it as a "first of it's kind" unit for this type of aircraft, saying it offers "unprecedented safety, a dramatically educed pilot workload, and enhanced situational awareness."

The company says that they are "still tweaking" options, but the MSRP for the Ibis will be $2,195,000, with an executive interior at around $2,500,000, described as "very competitive" by Marketing Manager Jeff Conrad. You can look for the first 6 aircraft to be delivered sometime in the second half of 2004.

One side note to Snydr flying to Orlando: In his younger days, he was test pilot for the L-39 Albatross. Once parked at Orlando Executive, the Spirit was about 50 yards from an L-39 owned and flown by Jet Warbird Training Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. "Duke" Faust struck up a conversation with Snydr when he came over for a look, and told me later "I picked his brain on everything having to do with the L-39. We swapped e-mail addresses…what a neat guy...what a resource!" A new friendship found on the ramp at NBAA!

FMI: www.ibisaerospace.com