Commander gets FAA thumbs up

Commander Premier Aircraft announced March 14 it has received Federal Aviation Administration authorization to certify parts for installation at its Cape Girardeau Regional Airport manufacturing facility.

The award is a major step toward building new aircraft at the local factory.

In a news release, Commander president and CEO Joel Hartstone said the approval was "like a birthday."

Hartstone said the company has created a quality assurance program acceptable to the FAA and is now "a client" of the federal agency. Commander chose complicated plane parts, including a spring for landing gear, to be the first to undergo the FAA vetting process.

Commander must have a meticulous manual specifying each measurement, calibration and test for each part. The parts will be manufactured by a subcontractor.

Hartstone, a former lawyer, said it's a strict standard to which he's accustomed.

"The quality assurance program is based on a very technical, very precisely written manual. It's not sufficient to be understood; you have to be insusceptible of being misunderstood. That's how you prove you're doing everything the way you said you were," he said.

And because of the FAA's strict rules, people can breath easy when they board a plane, Hartstone said.

"When you get on a Boeing jet, you don't worry whether or not every part of the airplane was made correctly. You know the FAA took care of that," he said.

The last new Commander Premier Aircraft was built in 2002. Hartstone said he receives inquiries from people interested in buying a new plane "virtually every day."

Hartstone said Commander hopes to begin accepting orders for new aircraft in two months. When production gets fully up and running, the plant will employ more than 40 people. That number will eventually increase to 60.

Each new aircraft will take about five weeks to build.

Hartstone hopes the slowness is reassuring to future passengers. "We do things very methodically one step at a time," he said. "We want to make sure we're on solid footing with what we've done before we take the next step."

-- TJ Greaney