A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Aircraft remanufacturer Nextant Aerospace is seeing progress with its newest program, the 604XT, and expects to bring the remanufactured Challenger 604 to market by year-end, company vice president of sales and marketing Randy Znamenak said on Monday at NBAA 2018. The large-cabin jet program, which Nextant launched last year in cooperation with Bombardier and Rockwell Collins, has completed its flight-test program and type inspection authorization, he said.

 


Rockwell Collins received its technical standard order authorization for the Pro Line Fusion flight deck upgrade just last week, with STC approval expected shortly. “The flight testing for the STC went even better than we had hoped,” said Nextant 604XT program director Steve Bruce. “We’re excited to be through that phase and ready to launch.”

 


The first Challenger 604 airframe will be inducted later this month and enter service by year-end. Nextant reports it currently has a backlog through the second quarter of next year. With double-digit sales, Znamenak noted Nextant is examining ways to increase its capacity to meet the demand.

 


As with all of Nextant’s remanufactured aircraft the 604XT package will be available either as an a la carte upgrade of the customer’s existing aircraft or as an entire turnkey remanufactured aircraft. The company is also offering a Safe Flight AutoPower option, which is fully integrated with the 604XT Fusion flight deck to deliver synchronized flight plan, “takeoff-to-touchdown,” power management.

 


An aerodynamic enhancement feasibility study is currently under way, with the goal of increasing the service ceiling of the aircraft to 45,000 feet and adding an additional 500 nm of range. The company recently entered the second phase of the program, which includes a new lightweight cabin interior shell that can accommodate a variety of configurations.

 


Meanwhile, the company is currently working on the 75th airframe of the first member of the Nextant family, the 400XTi, at its Cleveland, Ohio facility. It features a Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21&nbsp;four-screen cockpit, as well as new Williams International FJ44-3AP engines and a host of other improvements.

 


On Monday at NBAA 2018, Nextant unveiled another variant, the 400XTe, a step-down version of the aircraft with a three-screen Pro Line avionics suite&nbsp;based on the company’s U.S. Air Force T1-A modernization contract configuration.

 


Lastly, the G90XT rebuild of the King Air C90 is receiving a great amount of interest from high performance, single-engine aircraft owners looking to move up to turbine capability, according to James Clifford, the company’s director of new product development. The aircraft, which features a pair of new GE Aviation H75 engines, turning Hartzell props with auto-feathering, and an enhanced Garmin G1000 avionics system, is the first cabin-class turboprop twin to have an electronic, single-lever power control.

 


The company hopes to begin to begin production on delivery aircraft in the first quarter. “We’re ready to rock and roll right now,” said Clifford.

 


All three aircraft are on exhibit this week at the company’s NBAA static display (SD47).

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