for the long-lead items to complete an anticipated 30 production VFW-614s, along with sufficient critical items to build up to 50 airliners. By February 1975, only ten aircraft had been ordered. During April 1975, the first production VFW 614 made its first flight; it was delivered to Denmark's Cimber Air four months later. Design The VFW-Fokker 614 was a twin-engined short haul regional airliner; it was developed as in part to serve as a replacement for the popular propeller-driven pre-war Douglas DC-3. The 614 was the first passenger jetliner to be developed by West Germany, and featured an unconventional engine configuration. In its era, the aircraft was one of the smallest and slowest airliners to have been produced. The VFW 614 was powered by a pair of Rolls-Royce/SNECMA M45H turbofan engines. This powerplant, being relatively quiet and smokeless, had been specially developed to power the airliner. For further internal noise reduction, soundproofing was present within the cabin. These engines were installed on the airliner in an unconventional manner, having been mounted above the wings upon pylons at a mid-wing position. This arrangement had several advantages, such as avoiding the structural weight penalties imposed by rear-mounted engines and the potential ingestion risks present when engines were mounted beneath the wings. The engine configuration allowed the adoption of a short, sturdy undercarriage, which was specially suited to performing operations from austere or otherwise poorly-prepared runways. The position of the engine over the wing, compared to under-wing, also shielded people on the ground from intake noise during flyovers; this shielding effect is also present for aft-mounted engines. In conjunction with the above-wing engine installation, an unswept wing outfitted with a continuous trailing edge flap was adopted; this possessed no unfavourable interaction with the engine flow. The continuous flap gave excellent low speed performance, however, during high speed travel, interference between the wing and pylon flow fields resulted in flow separation, which in turn limited the cruise speed to M0.65. A recent aircraft, the HondaJet, which also featured an over-wing engine installation, used a high speed natural laminar flow airfoil and an engine configuration that actually produced favorable interference at high speed. The flight deck of the VFW 614 was designed to facilitate easy two-crew operations. The flight crew are provided with a large windscreen, providing favourable external visibility, and a relatively spacious environment. Instead of using side-mounted consoles, a large centrally-mounted console accommodates