Kestrel Aircraft Co. to Build Airplanes at BNAS, Expects 300 Jobs

Kestrel Aircraft Co. has decided to locate at the soon-to-be-closed Brunswick Naval Air Station, becoming the first major jobs-producing tenant at the site.

The company expects to employ about 300 people by the time it starts turning out high-tech composite turboprop planes that will carry six to eight passengers. Kestrel Aircraft needs to get federal certification for both the planes and the production facility, meaning it will be about three years before the aircraft are rolling out of the huge hangar the company will use.

Alan Klapmeier, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, said 300 jobs is "a target that we'll hopefully pass through on the way to other numbers" as the company grows and adds new models.

Klapmeier said he knew of BNAS as "a kind of a hole in the middle of the state that you could not fly in" because of restrictions on the flight space due to military operations. Now, he said, it's more a "black hole" that should pull in aviation companies attracted by its extensive facilities, many of which were upgraded just a few years before the decision was made to close the base. The hangar where Kestrel Aircraft will set up shop, for instance, is just seven years old.

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