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Utilicraft Selling Stock to Fund New Freight Aircraft
The builder of a proposed twin-engine freight aircraft, which recently moved to Albuquerque's Double Eagle II airport despite the collapse in 2005 of a major financing and manufacturing deal, is having another go at selling over-thecounter stock to finance the project.
Utilicraft Aerospace Industries Inc. announced the day after Christmas that it had begun trading on the Bulletin Board as UITA.
Utilicraft emerged in 2004 from the closure of Georgiabased American Utilicraft Corp., which traded as AMUC.
It aims to build the FF-1080 Freight Feeder, a boxy, 112-foot aircraft and power it by using twin Pratt & Whitney turboprop engines. It is designed to carry standard air freight containers and operate from short runways ferrying freight to and from major international hubs. It is designed to carry payloads exceeding 40,000 pounds, according to the company.
Utilicraft was aggressively recruited to New Mexico in 2004. In 2005, company and state officials announced an arrangement with the Navajo Nation, in which the tribe would invest $34 million in the company in exchange for Utilicraft's providing hundreds of jobs building airplane components on tribal land.
Gov. Bill Richardson, in a news release at the time, applauded the proposal, and a Web site supporting his 2006 gubernatorial re-election bid counts the Utilicraft deal as one of several developments Richardson has helped spearhead for Native Americans.
