Podgórzyn, Poland-based Flaris will officially announce at the upcoming Paris Air Show that it has selected the Williams FJ33-5A to power its LAR 1 five-seat single-engine very light jet. The company prototype, unveiled at the 2013 Paris Air Show, was originally fitted with a 1,460-pound-thrust Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F, but LAR 1 project director Rafał Ładziński told AIN last year that the aircraft requires an engine that could produce at least 1,506 pounds of thrust.

To meet this requirement, Flaris had been considering the P&WC PW615 and an engine from French firm Price Induction before settling on the Williams turbofan. The FJ33-5A was originally developed for the now-shelved Diamond D-Jet, also a single-engine jet design, and produces about 1,700 pounds of thrust.

Ładziński said engineers included provisions to accommodate other powerplants, making an engine switch “fairly easy.” With the new engine, target performance specifications are mostly unchanged: 820-foot takeoff distance from a grass field, 380-knot top cruise speed, 62-knot stall speed, 1,543-pound empty weight and 3,300-pound mtow. It has lowered the certified ceiling from 46,000 feet to 28,000 feet and boosted the maximum range from 1,350 nm to 1,700 nm. After the Paris show, Flaris plans to resume taxi tests using the new engine as it prepares for first flight. FAA and EASA type certification is still planned for 2016.