first transnational aircraft company. Aerospace publication Flying Magazine accredits Fokker's involvement in the project with several refinements and changes to the emerging design of the VFW 614, which included the discarding of a T-tail in favour of a conventional unit, furnished with a low-set vertical stabilizer and dihedral. During this time, Fokker sought to broaden its financial basis and determined that the VFW 614 had promise; as such, the company intended to market the type through Fokker's established civil sales unit and support infrastructure; however, the union has been regarded by some commentators as having been an 'unhappy arrangement' and had only lasted for only ten years before its dissolution. In addition, several risk sharing agreements had been concluded with other aviation companies, including Siebel Flugzeugwerke ATG (SEAT) in Germany, Fairey and SABCA in Belgium and Shorts in the United Kingdom. Final assembly of the aircraft was to be performed at VFW's Bremen facility. Development of the aircraft had been heavily influenced by the pre-war American piston-engine Douglas DC-3 passenger aircraft. During late 1971, it was reported that the company had anticipated overall sales of the VFW 614 airliner to reach between 300 and 400 units, which was to have included its use by various American operators. On 14 July 1971, the first of three prototypes performed its maiden flight. The first flight of the aircraft was also the first time that the engine had been airborne, having not been previously flown on a test-bed. To speed up flight testing, the first and second prototypes, which were reportedly almost identical, were dispatched to Spain for three months of comprehensive trials to evaluate their performance under 'hot and high' conditions. Shortly after the accumulation of 800 flying hours, the design was frozen for production and manufacturing activity commenced on the first ten production airliners. Development of the aircraft was protracted and orders slow to materialise, despite a strong marketing campaign. The situation was not helped by Rolls-Royce's bankruptcy in 1971 which threatened the supply of engines. According to aircraft publication Flight International, by 1974 the performance guarantees on both the thrust and fuel consumption of the M45H had been fulfilled. On 1 February 1972, the programme was damaged by the loss of the first prototype, which was attributed to an instance of elevator flutter; which played a role in further diminishing the order situation. By late 1974, orders had been placed