Northwest Aerospace News February | March 2019 Issue No. 7 | Page 27

Photo credit: EVI Productions
The company still hasn’t announced suppliers for
critical air structures or systems, and while Knapp
said it’s likely that final assembly will take place
somewhere in Washington State, the company
hasn’t identified prospective sites or settled on final
site-selection criteria.
AEROSPACE INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD presented to
Matt Knapp, Co-Founder and CTO of Zunum Aero, at the Aerospace
Futures Alliance 13th Annual Aerospace Summit. - afa-wa.com
Still, Knapp said the goal is to have a final assem-
bly plant established by the end of 2020, with test
flights starting in 2022, and entry into service in
2023.
Crucially, it has an announced customer – JetSuite,
a Southern California-based air charter operator
which has said it will take as many as 100 of the
planes.
Knapp acknowledged the challenges. For starters,
he noted, operators will need help developing a
new airport infrastructure. “We’ve got a system
that’s finely tuned for 70 years to use Jet-A.”
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