After completing all the ground testing, the soon-to-be-certified Seawind 300C received its flight permit and took to the sky over Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Canada.

The Canadian National Research Council (NRC) will perform the flight test piloting under the direction of DAR Chief Test Pilot Robert Erdos. The flight analytical work will be performed by John Taylor, who recently retired as Vice President of Engineering at Bombardier.

The Seawind will be manufactured at the company’s 82,000-square-foot manufacturing and hangar facility at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Airport in Quebec, Canada.

The flight test aircraft was piloted on its first flight by Paul Kissman, and the NRC’s Harvard chase plane was piloted by Anthony Brown, both of whom are NRC test pilots. The initial flight lasted about an hour, as Kissman got familiar with the racy amphibian.

Richard Silva, president of Seawind, said, “The pilots reported the controls in pitch and roll were excellent. The doublet on the rudder was very good with a light two cycle Dutch roll to be expected on the close coupled amphibian. The power plant and aircraft systems all worked as designed and as expected.”

After the debriefing, the Seawind was flown to Ottawa, where the full flight testing program will be conducted.

Silva said, “It will take about four weeks for the NRC to install the flight test instrumentation, after which full flight testing will begin.

“We are looking forward to the completion of flight testing and the start up of production. We have a backlog of over 50 customer orders.”

After the initial test of the aircraft systems, the Seawind will continue ground taxi testing at Saint Jean Airport, where the company’s 82,000-square-foot manufacturing facility is located.  Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is southeast of Montreal, just north of the New York and Vermont border at the northern outflow of Lake Champlain.

After the ground test, the Seawind will be turned over to the Canada National Research Council to install all the flight test instrumentation and to complete the flight test program in Ottawa.

Seawind President Richard Silva said, “Everyone is elated to resume flight testing, and we are looking forward to assembling the next test aircraft for IFR, autopilot, and avionics options.  Once we are assured that there will be no changes resulting from flight testing, we intend to start building customer aircraft to reduce the order backlog.” 

Silva said, “We now have full comfort and confidence with our flight test team.  This is a highly professional group of very experienced test pilots. 

“With an order backlog of 53 aircraft, we are anxious to start to build up the production rate.

“We have a very loyal customer base.  A number of our customers invested in the company, which provided the funding to complete certification.  They made it all possible.”

For more information, call 610-384-7000 or e-mail seawind@seawind.net.

Seawind is Taking Orders

With the latest developments, Seawind is taking risk-free advanced orders. 

RISK-FREE ADVANCED ORDER POLICY

Although the Seawind has proven performance as the world's best and fastest single-engine amphibian, we are offering a no-risk order policy until you can experience a demonstration flight in the CERTIFIED SEAWIND.

We are so sure that you will want to have a Seawind that we are offering:

• A full refund of your Advanced Order Conditional Deposit with interest if you wish to cancel for any reason

• A production position

Your $9,000 USD deposit will go directly into an interest-bearing escrow account until you have a satisfactory demonstration flight or you ask for your money back. 

With the impending commencement of production, we want to increase our order book so that we can confidently ramp up production and build up inventory.  We look forward to hearing from you!