Stratos Aircraft has completed load testing on the 716X light single and is assembling the first prototype for a planned first flight in the second half of this year, Stratos chief technology officer Carsten Sundin confirmed to AIN this week. “The first 716X is nearing final assembly at our main assembly plant and will go from there to the paint shop and then to the flight line,” Sundin said.

Announced at the 2018 EAA AirVenture, the six-seat, single-engine jet is all carbon fiber and powered by a Pratt & Whitney JT15D-5 turbofan with 3,000 pounds of thrust. It is a larger version of the 714, with a fuselage that is 31 inches longer and two inches wider. Its cockpit features Garmin equipment including dual G3X screens, GTN 750 MFD, and integrated autopilot.

Stratos’s 714 has served as a proof-of-concept, which he added will never go into production. “It was a proof of concept for the 716, as it turns out,” Sundin explained. Stratos has more than 330 flight hours on the 714. “We’ve been up to 32,500 ft and are gradually continuing to expand the flight envelope.”

Assembled at Stratos’s 41,000 sq ft of facilities— machine shop, composite assembly facility, and composite shop—in the city of Redmond, Oregon, the prototype 716X will undergo flight testing at nearby Roberts Field-Redmond Municipal Airport (RDM), Sundin added. The 716X will initially be offered as a builder-assisted kit, with a fully assembled version later offered as the 716 Certified.

Sundin commented that the company has not publicly said when it expects to begin deliveries of the 716X. “We do want to get this first flight under our belt and expand the flight envelope a bit on the 716,” he said. “We expect it will go pretty quick because it really is similar to the 714 in so many ways.”