Symphony Aircraft Industries
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Symphony Aircraft Industries (SAI) was a light aircraft manufacturer based in
Trois-Rivières Trois-Rivières (, – 'Three Rivers') is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice River, Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence River, Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Sain ...
,
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.Hunt, Adam: ''A brief history of Symphony Aircraft'', COPA Flight December 2005 Between May 2005 and January 2007 SAI manufactured the
Symphony SA-160 The Symphony SA-160 is a CAR 523 certified, two-seat, single-engine, high-wing airplane that was manufactured by Symphony Aircraft Industries in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada in the mid-2000s.Hunt, Adam: ''A brief history of Symphony Airc ...
aircraft for the personal use, touring and flight training market. On January 22, 2007, it declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. The company's motto was ''Certified Fun''.


History


OMF Aircraft

SAI was started in September 2003 as the North American production arm of
Ostmecklenburgische Flugzeugbau Ostmecklenburgische Flugzeugbau GmbH, (East Mecklenburg Aircraft Works Limited) was a light aircraft manufacturer in Neubrandenburg Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The company was commonly known as OMF Aircraft. OMF was formed by Mathias Stinnes ...
GmbH, (East Mecklenburg Aircraft Works Limited). The company was commonly known as OMF Aircraft. OMF was formed by Mathias Stinnes in 1998 and was headquartered in
Neubrandenburg Neubrandenburg (lit. ''New Brandenburg'', ) is a city in the southeast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located on the shore of a lake called Tollensesee and forms the urban centre of the Mecklenburg Lakeland. The city is famous for its ...
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Stinnes formed OMF Aircraft to produce a FAR 23 certified version of the Stoddard-Hamilton Glastar. He had built and flown one of these amateur-built aircraft in the 1990s and believed that it would make a good production aircraft. The certified version of the Glastar was to be called the OMF-100-160 Symphony with certification targeted for 2000. Realizing that the bulk of the market for this aircraft was in North America Stinnes set up a production facility in Trois-Rivières with financial help from the Government of Quebec. The plant building was constructed by the Town of Trois-Rivières and leased to OMF. The plant was opened in September 2003. OMF suffered from under-financing during its start-up phase and declared bankruptcy in December 2003. Due to agreements in place, the production rights for the OMF-100-160 Symphony resided in Canada while the intellectual property rights were retained in Germany.


Symphony Aircraft Industries

The Canadian plant operation was reorganized as a private company under the name of Symphony Aircraft Industries, while the intellectual property rights to the OMF-100-160 Symphony were sold by the bankruptcy trustees to a new German company, OMF Flugzeugwerk. An agreement was signed between OMF Flugzeugwerk and Symphony Aircraft to produce the design on two production lines in North America and Europe. This soon proved unworkable and OMF Flugzeugwerk sold out their interests to SAI in February 2005. SAI redesignated the aircraft as the Symphony SA-160 and completed
Transport Canada Transport Canada (french: Transports Canada) is the department within the Government of Canada responsible for developing regulations, policies and services of road, rail, marine and air transportation in Canada. It is part of the Transportati ...
certification under CAR 523, with Transport Canada manufacturing approval achieved in March 2005. On May 4, 2005 SAI completed
FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
Type Certification, based on the Canadian certification and the first SAI produced aircraft received its FAA Certificate of Airworthiness on May 13, 2005. The company started by producing two Symphony 160s per month in early 2005 with production increasing to three per month in the fall of 2005 and five per month in 2006. The company pursued certification of a
Ballistic Recovery Systems Ballistic Recovery Systems, Inc., doing business as BRS Aerospace (and commonly referred to as simply BRS), is a manufacturer of aircraft ballistic parachutes. The company was formed in 1980 by Boris Popov of Saint Paul, Minnesota, after he su ...
full aircraft parachute system and also an
Avidyne Avidyne Corporation is an avionics company based in Melbourne, Florida. Avidyne is developer of Integrated Avionics Systems, multi-function displays, and traffic advisory systems for light general aviation (GA) aircraft. Headquartered in Melbou ...
glass cockpit A glass cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features electronic (digital) flight instrument displays, typically large LCD screens, rather than the traditional style of analog dials and gauges. While a traditional cockpit relies on numerous mech ...
instrumentation installation. SAI filed for protection from creditors under the Canadian ''Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act'' in June 2006. At that time the company stated that it needed an investment of US$5.5M to continue production. The company was not able to secure the capital in Canada and indicated at that time that it might have to relocate production to attract financing from other sources. CEO Paul Costanzo indicated that factors involved in this situation included the dramatic fall in value of the US dollar against the Canadian dollar between 2003–2006, start-up and product improvement costs that were greater than expected and especially a venture capital environment in the Province of Quebec that Costanzo described as "dismal". He stated at the time, "We have simply been unable to attract sufficient capital to allow us to effectively exploit the obvious opportunity that we have with the SA-160, let alone fund our planned development of a diesel two-place and a four-place product." He indicated then that the company was focusing on certification of the SA-160's
glass cockpit A glass cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features electronic (digital) flight instrument displays, typically large LCD screens, rather than the traditional style of analog dials and gauges. While a traditional cockpit relies on numerous mech ...
installation along with product cost reduction measures. On January 22, 2007, following the withdrawal of its lead investor three days previously, Symphony Aircraft declared bankruptcy, closed its doors and laid off its entire workforce.


NAFTAA

On February 3, 2008 it was publicly announced that the former lead investor in Symphony Aircraft, Lou Simons, was planning to restart production of the SA-160 under the name North American Factory for Technologically Advanced Aircraft (NAFTAA). The intention at that time was that aircraft may be produced at a different location and may have a new name. Also planned were additional versions of the SA-160. The new company announced in July 2008 that they intended to restart production by the end of 2009 at the previous plant in Trois Riveries, with a plan to produce 15 aircraft in 2009 and ramp up production to 50 to 80 per year by 2012. The aircraft were to have been given a new name and be available in a VFR version intended for flight school use, a basic
IFR In aviation, instrument flight rules (IFR) is one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other is visual flight rules (VFR). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ''Instrument Fly ...
version and a
glass cockpit A glass cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features electronic (digital) flight instrument displays, typically large LCD screens, rather than the traditional style of analog dials and gauges. While a traditional cockpit relies on numerous mech ...
equipped version powered by a 200-hp
Lycoming IO-390 The Lycoming IO-390 engine is a horizontally opposed, four-cylinder aircraft engine, manufactured by Lycoming Engines. There is no carburetted version of the engine, which would have been designated O-390 and therefore the base model is the ...
powerplant giving it a forecast cruise speed of 148 knots. The plan was never completed and no new aircraft were produced.


Products

*
Symphony SA-160 The Symphony SA-160 is a CAR 523 certified, two-seat, single-engine, high-wing airplane that was manufactured by Symphony Aircraft Industries in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada in the mid-2000s.Hunt, Adam: ''A brief history of Symphony Airc ...


References

{{reflist
Symphony 160: Cash Needed, Customers Waiting – AvWeb Jun 29 2006


* Sport Aviation Magazine, Sept 2006, page 18, Symphony Restructuring


External links


Symphony Aircraft Industries website archives
on
archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Aviation in Canada Defunct aircraft manufacturers of Canada Companies based in Quebec Trois-Rivières