A Cooperative Research and Development Agreement has been signed between the Air Force and Textron AirLand, LLC, a Textron Inc. company of Wichita, Kansas.
Under this collaborative agreement, the United States Air Force Airworthiness Office will provide an airworthiness assessment of the Model 530 Scorpion, a non-DOD military aircraft designed, developed and funded by Textron AirLand, LLC.
“This is the first of its kind, we have not done a CRADA like this before and we have never had a partnership with industry to assess aircraft that are not under a USAF acquisition contract,” said Jorge F. Gonzalez, U.S. Air Force Technical Airworthiness Authority.
The assessment, conducted under the auspices of Gonzalez, may be used by industry as a verification of the safety of aircraft design. The assessment is important when industry seeks to make direct commercial sales to foreign military services.
The NDMA office will help the Air Force gain valuable insight into the state of aviation development outside of the traditional defense sector, as well as an awareness of Independent Research and Development activities of U. S. aerospace companies, according to Gonzalez.