Jet Appeal

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

In 2007, Stratos Aircraft set out to design and manufacture an exciting, high-flying new product, which they estimate is still at least five years away from going to market. With a hefty capital investment, they are now working on their second prototype: a six-passenger, single jet engine plane that cruises at 41,000 feet, with a range of around 1,500 nautical miles, and a comfortable cabin pressured to an altitude of 7,600 feet. 

I recently went to the Stratos manufacturing facility in Redmond, Oregon, to meet President and CEO Carsten Sundin and his team where I learned more about what it takes to design, build, and bring a new aircraft to market.

Barry Matties: Carsten, let’s start with a little bit about your company.

Carsten Sundin: We started back in 2007 with a goal to design and produce an aircraft with significantly better performance than anything else out there in the high-performance, personal aircraft category. We set out to see what it would take to design an aircraft that would comfortably seat four people and travel as far as 1,500 nautical miles with reserves, cruise at 400 knots and, therefore, be a significant step up from anything else available at the time. When we started our initial design studies, we didn't really have any set ideas about what that aircraft would look like. We considered all the various configurations and powerplant options. The further we got into it, the more we realized a single-engine jet would keep it less expensive. Single-engine turbine aircraft today are incredibly reliable; you simply don't need a second engine for safety reasons. These engines, as long as they get fuel, just don't quit. A single engine makes it a lot easier for the owner-operator. This aircraft is very simple to fly compared to even the basic piston-powered aircraft.

Long story short, our design studies led us to the Stratos 716X. It’s an aircraft that's powered by a single Pratt and Whitney JT15D-5 engine. It has about 3,000 pounds of thrust and it propels the aircraft at about 380 knots. The production engine will take us to the goal of 400 knots. At 41,000 feet, this aircraft has a very comfortable cabin altitude of 7,600 feet, which is comparable to the Boeing 787. The trend is for lower cabin altitudes, so you arrive a lot more refreshed and not so fatigued from a long flight. So far, we've flown two aircraft now—the Stratos 714 and the 716—and they're proving to meet all the performance goals that we set out to make.

Matties: What led you to want to start an aircraft company? It’s not something people wake up one day and just say, “You know what? Today, I'm going to go build an airplane.”

Sundin: Well, aircraft is all I've ever done. Straight out of college, I worked for Lancair. For 10 years, I was part of several exciting aircraft programs there including the Lancair 360, the ES, the Lancair IV, and the Lancair Legacy. I had very good exposure the first 10 years of my career, then I went on to manage the engineering of the Epic LT program, a six-seat turboprop aircraft company. I consulted for a few years after that. Then I wanted to get involved with aircraft design and manufacturing again. So, I pitched a few different ideas to potential investors and this one literally took off.

 To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the August 2023 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.