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- BUSINESS, Page 79Business NotesAEROSPACESoviet Wings, Capitalist Tool
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- The partnership would have been unthinkable a few years
- ago. Sukhoi, the Soviet maker of military planes, and
- Gulfstream, the most prestigious name in U.S. corporate jets,
- are making tentative plans to build a supersonic business
- aircraft. In a $1 billion project, the two manufacturers hope
- to produce a jet that will fly at 1,500 m.p.h., twice the speed
- of sound, and carry as many as 20 passengers over a range of
- more than 5,600 miles. The plane would sell for about $50
- million.
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- The project is still in the design stage and faces abundant
- obstacles, including concerns about the effect of sonic booms
- on the environment and the licensing of advanced U.S. technology
- to the Soviets. But the partners plan to have detailed designs
- ready within a few weeks and hope to fly the plane by 1995.
- Sukhoi will have prime responsibility for the airframe;
- Gulfstream will concentrate on electronics and cockpit design;
- and Rolls-Royce has been enlisted to help design the plane's
- engines.
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