was conducted on 29 October 1996. By May 2002, the two prototypes had accumulated a total of 640 flight hours. PZL-Swidnik targeted US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) FAR Part 27 certification for the SW-4. it was believed that the program should be capable of producing production models by 1999. A decision to redesign the main rotor head resulted in considerable delays to the flight testing program; during this time, other changes were made to the rotorcraft, included the horizontal stabilizer being extended and improvements of the hydraulic systems. In 2002, the first production model SW-4, which was equipped with the Rolls-Royce engine, was approaching receipt of certification from the Polish civil aviation authority. Certification for use in other markets is to be made upon customer request, targeting a $700,000 price at the time. On 1 October 2002, serial production of the SW-4 formally began. On 27 September 2007, type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) was received. Following on from the certification of the Rolls-Royce model, PZL Swidnik pursued a separate re-certification for a modified SW-4 fitted with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PW200 powerplant as an alternative option. Further development The SW-4 as planned was expected to fulfill a range of utility missions ranging from civil and executive transport to Medevac, police, border patrol duties and some of military pilot training tasks; however, for several years the Polish military had served as the type's only customer. In Polish service, 24 SW-4, with a military name Puszczyk, has been used as a training rotorcraft, replacing the Mil Mi-2, at "The Center of Aviation Education and Training at Dęblin" (Ośrodek Szkolenia Lotniczego w Dęblinie). In January 2004, Indonesian Aerospace (IAe) was in the process of negotiating a risk-sharing agreement to set up a local assembly line for the SW-4, dependent upon an order from the Indonesian National Police. In October 2005, PZL-Świdnik revealed that it was conducting talks with Rolls-Royce over the prospective use of a more powerful variant of the SW-4's Model 250C20R powerplant; at the same point, it was publicly acknowledged that the development of a stretched, twin-engine development of the SW-4 was under active consideration, and that this would be dependent upon export sales of the present model. In February 2009, Rolls-Royce stated that it was holding talks with PZL-Świdnik on the prospective use of its newly developed Rolls-Royce RR500 engine on future derivatives of the