A Norfolk aircraft manufacturer's latest innovation has helped unlock new markets in Germany - but frustrations remain that the finished product is still grounded in the UK because of red tape.
The Light Aircraft Company (TLAC), based at Little Snoring Airfield, near Fakenham, produces the Sherwood Ranger aircraft, which has been sold in kit form all over the world.
After a year of development, the firm has finished testing a ballistic parachute recovery system which can bring both plane and pilot safely to earth in the event of an emergency. It was designed to meet the regulations required to sell the microlight model as a fully-built aircraft in Germany. But the current certification regime run by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will not allow the same model to be sold as a completed biplane in the UK.
Director Paul Hendry-Smith said: "It is absolutely crazy. We are getting to the point where we can manufacture finished aircraft, ready to fly, for German customers, but we cannot sell them in the UK. We are employing more British labour and more British skills and components, and we are in a position where we can export British-built planes - which is what I thought the whole game was about.
"We have made representation to the CAA to ask to be considered to produce finished aircraft in the UK. They have a complex set of arrangements where we have to create an exposition of bills and on control of the whole process.
"The German equivalent of the CAA has empowered their national controlling authority for microlights to manage the construction of finished aircraft - but that has not happened in the UK." Mr Hendry-Smith took over the company in 2008 and now sells 12-14 Sherwood Ranger kits a year. About 18 sold since 2010 are under construction in countries including Thailand, Holland, Spain, Italy, America and Japan.
The firm's German distributor, Lanitz Aviation in Leipzig, is committed to sell six to 12 finished aircraft per year. TLAC is preparing for an April trade show in Germany, where demand has already been found to be high, with potential customers prepared to pay the equivalent of about £50,000 for a fully-built microlight, compared to the starting price of £13,500 for a kit.
Mr Hendry-Smith hopes the added sales will allow him to add two apprentices to the company's workforce, currently two production staff, two on aircraft maintenance and two on administration duties.
Jonathan Nicholson, a spokesman for the CAA, said while most aircraft were certified to European-wide standards, smaller aeroplanes like microlights were assessed on a "nation-by-nation" basis. "For us, we require a bit more oversight initially for a new type of aircraft, but that is just to ensure it is safe," he said. "We might be interested in doing some test flying, looking at the factory and seeing what standards they have got and how it is built."
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