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Honda Aircraft Co., the company building HondaJet, said this week it has completed key tests on its HondaJet aircraft at its factory in Greensboro, North Carolina.

HondaJet plans to build a $9 million sales and maintenance hangar at Albany International airport. Construction of the Albany hangar—initially scheduled to open this year—was delayed by the recession. HondaJet will provide sales and maintenance services for Honda Aircraft Co.

The Albany HondaJet hangar would open around the time the first HondaJet is scheduled to hit the market in 2012, airport spokesman Doug Myers said. The operation is expected to create 25 to 30 local high-paying jobs.

HondaJet will own the building and has a 25-year lease with the Albany airport that includes a first-year leasing rate of $65,393. New York state will pay $500,000 toward the project.

HondaJet’s recent tests, combined with structural testing planned for this summer and a first “conforming” flight test scheduled for later this year, should lead to Federal Aviation Administration certification of the private five- to six-person airplane, Honda Aircraft CEO Michimasa Fujino said during this week’s 2010 EAA AirVenture conference in Wisconsin.

“With this significant milestone achieved, we are now focused on the integration of avionics and other electrical systems in anticipation of first flight later this year,” Fujino said.

While a prototype of the HondaJet light aircraft has been flying since 2003, the conforming craft must meet FAA requirements for flight certification.

Honda aircraft also said it is nearing completion of the superstructure of the 250,000-square-foot production facility on its campus near Piedmont Triad International Airport, in Greensboro, with installation of electrical and plumbing systems next on the agenda. That facility should be completed early next year.

About 450 people work at the Greensboro HondaJet facility now, with about 600 total employees expected when full production begins.

The Albany HondaJet hangar will be built between the Million Air terminal, where HondaJet has set up temporary operations, and the vacant Eclipse Aviation hangar.

The Eclipse hangar at the Albany airport has been vacant since the Albuquerque, New Mexico company filed for bankruptcy November 2008. It is being marketed by the Albany office of NAI Platform, a global real estate company.

Myers said NAI Platform has shown the hangar a number of times since Eclipse was released from its lease in September 2009.

Source;
http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2010/07/26/daily44.html