A joint venture between New Zealand aircraft maker Pacific Aerospace and Beijing General Aviation Company (BGAC) launches this week with the opening of an aircraft manufacturing plant in Changzhou, China
The purpose-built facility will be officially opened on 21 October, called Beijing Pan-Pacific Aerospace Technology (BPAT), and expects to roll out up to 100 light aircraft a year.
Along with Pacific Aerospace's P-750 XTOL single-engine turbo-prop, BPAT will also produce a smaller, multi-purpose utility aircraft, the E-350 Expedition, the type certificate for which PAC bought from Found Aircraft in Canada. There are also plans to produce the CT-4E Airtrainer in Changzhou.
“Our Changzhou facility will be the world’s newest general aviation plant and what’s more, we’ve got plenty of space to expand to meet the growing demand from the Chinese market” said joint venture CEO Damian Camp. “We are offering all that is required to grow that general aviation industry.
“China is going to be a major player in world general aviation and we needed to be there. In turn Beijing Automotive’s subsidiary Beijing General Aviation wanted an innovative, experienced and accomplished partner and liked our P-750.
“For our part we can pick up on the manufacturing expertise of Beijing Automotive and have better access to the China market by having more Chinese content in aircraft. This is the biggest development in Pacific Aerospace’s history and critically important as we see demand for the P-750 and the new E-350 increase.”
BPAT will provide services to other general aviation companies, including management and maintenance services, and will offer pilot and engineering training in China.
Aircraft for export will continue to be manufactured on the Hamilton, NZ, campus, where Pacific Aerospace currently employs 150 people, and is training Chinese staff.