XTI Aircraft appoints James Kromberg to lead flight test team and develop the training plan for its TriFan 600 aircraft

XTI Air­craft Com­pa­ny (XTI) has hired James Kromberg to lead the com­pa­ny’s flight test team and devel­op its train­ing plan and test require­ments for the Tri­Fan 600 air­craft.

Kromberg is a senior flight test pilot and aero­nau­ti­cal engi­neer with more than 25 years flight test expe­ri­ence. Dur­ing that peri­od, he has been a pilot, test pilot, and instruc­tor for sev­er­al civil­ian and mil­i­tary organ­i­sa­tions includ­ing First Offi­cer and Flight Engi­neer for Amer­i­can Air­lines, U.S.Marine Corps AV-8B Test Pilot, USAF F‑35 Chief Test Pilot. He has also instruct­ed in mul­ti­ple addi­tion­al air­craft while assigned to the USAF Test Pilot School.

Robert LaBelle, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of XTI, said: “We’re very pleased to have Jim join XTI. Adding Jim’s amaz­ing tal­ents to an already stel­lar team fur­ther boosts our con­fi­dence and cred­i­bil­i­ty.

“As our pro­gramme matures, Jim will lead the devel­op­ment of an inte­grat­ed test & cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan, along with tech­ni­cal and safe­ty reviews. His respon­si­bil­i­ties will also encom­pass devel­op­ment of pro­gram doc­u­ments for sys­tem require­ments, pro­gram man­age­ment and sys­tems engi­neer­ing plans, along with test and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion strate­gies.”

As the world’s first long-range civil­ian VTOL air­plane, XTI says the Tri­Fan is a major break­through in avi­a­tion and air trav­el, includ­ing its qui­eter and clean­er hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem.

The six-seat air­craft will have the speed, range, and com­fort of a lux­u­ry busi­ness air­craft and the abil­i­ty to take off and land ver­ti­cal­ly, like a heli­copter. It will trav­el at 345mph, with a range of up to 1,200 nau­ti­cal miles. Using three duct­ed fans, the Tri­Fan lifts off ver­ti­cal­ly. Its two wing fans then rotate for­ward for a seam­less tran­si­tion to cruise speed and its ini­tial climb. It will reach 30,000 feet in just ten min­utes, cruise as a high­ly effi­cient busi­ness air­craft, and land ver­ti­cal­ly at the des­ti­na­tion.

So far, the com­pa­ny has received 116 orders for the Tri­Fan 600 — rep­re­sent­ing more than $750 mil­lion in gross rev­enues upon deliv­ery. It puts them on track to achieve cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and launch in the mid-2020s. XTI will per­ma­nent­ly close its cur­rent financ­ing on the StartEngine Crowd­fund­ing plat­form on April 30th, 2021Until that date, XTI secu­ri­ties will con­tin­ue to be avail­able for pur­chase on StartEngine.com

“The company’s busi­ness prospects are strong,” said LaBelle. “We’ve recent­ly achieved key mile­stones, includ­ing a series of suc­cess­ful hov­er tests, entered into a major col­lab­o­ra­tion with GE Avi­a­tion, and into agree­ments with key sup­pli­ers.

“The mar­ket con­tin­ues to rec­og­nize the val­ue propo­si­tion of our unique and rev­o­lu­tion­ary air­plane and its patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy. We believe the Tri­fan 600 will solve the fast and far chal­lenge while pro­vid­ing point-to-point trav­el and out-per­form­ing oth­er civil­ian air­craft cur­rent­ly in devel­op­ment; fixed-wing air­plane, heli­copter, elec­tric VTOLs.

“Our offer­ing on the StartEngine plat­form has pro­vid­ed a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty for unac­cred­it­ed and accred­it­ed investors around the world to own a piece of the future of flight”, con­clud­ed LaBelle.