CAPE AIRPORT CONSIDERED FOR AIRCRAFT PLANT

VisionAire Corp. is looking at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport as a possible site for a plant to manufacture its proposed new VisionAire Vantage single-engine business jet.

The regional airport is among a number of communities the firm is considering.

"This will be our first production facility," said Gary Pluth, chief financial officer of VisionAire, headquartered at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield. "We have looked at Cape Girardeau and we've looked at a number of other areas."

An announcement of the site for the new facility could come as early as next week.

"Construction of the facility would be later," said Mark Jones, director of marketing sales. "But, we'd like to be in production by mid-1997."

A group of Cape Girardeau officials visited VisionAire headquarters earlier this week.

"We had an opportunity to see the mockup of the plane they will be building," said Mayor Al Spradling III, who was among the group visiting the company. "Obviously, we're hoping they will select Cape Girardeau."

VisionAire is no stranger to Cape Girardeau officials.

"Chamber officials have been in contact with the company the past two years," said Mitch Robinson of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association.

VisionAire was founded in St. Louis in 1988 by James O. "Jim" Rice Jr. to develop the first all-composite monojet business aircraft at affordable prices and low operating costs.

The Vantage, which will be powered by a Pratt & Whitney JT15D-5 engine, is designed for five passengers and a pilot. Maximum cruising speed of the plane, which is expected to be priced well under the $2 million mark, will be about 410 mph.

Operating costs are expected to be 40 percent less than jets offering comparable speed. The Vantage will be capable of operating from runways as short as 2,000 feet.

The new VisionAire assembly facility is expected to provide 150 to 300 new jobs. Another 1,200 new jobs would probably be created from local economic improvements created by the direct employment, Jones said.

"These estimates are for the early period as production increases toward a planned 150 aircraft per year delivery rate," Jones said.

VisionAire was awarded a contract for construction of a full-scale, proof-of-concept, prototype of the new Vantage aircraft last month.

The prototype will be produced by Scaled Composites Inc. of Mojave, Calif., under the direction of renowned aircraft maker Burt Rutan.

"Awarding the contract was a big moment for VisionAire," Jones said. "To have an individual the caliber of Burt Rutan leading our proof-of-concept construction is exciting for us."

The agreement calls for Rutan's Scaled Composites Inc., which also conducted the Vantage's initial design studies, to perform prototype construction and initial flight test of the VisionAire Vantage.

Rutan has designed more than 20 successful aircraft, and Scaled Composites is an industry leader in composite technology.