BEMBRIDGE, ISLE OF WIGHT, UK / AGILITYPR.NEWS / September 04, 2026 / Aircraft serial 2317 took off from Bembridge on Thursday 3^rd September, built up on the Isle of Wight from individual components rather than delivered as a finished airframe

The Britten-Norman Islander that lifted off from Bembridge Airport, on Thursday 3 September, is the first Islander whose airframe has been assembled in the United Kingdom from detail component level. It is the proof that Britten-Norman’s new production line at Bembridge works.

Aircraft 2317 flew under the hands of Britten-Norman’s flight test crew, watched from the apron by the engineering and production teams who had rolled it out of the factory five weeks earlier. It took off from the runway the Islander prototype used for its maiden flight in June 1965, a few hundred metres from where the company was founded.

What has changed at Bembridge is where the aircraft is put together. Islander airframes were built under sub-contract in Bucharest from 1968 and brought to the Isle of Wight for fit-out, customisation and certification, with the design, the type certificate and production control held in the UK throughout. From 2009 the arrangement moved to major sub-assemblies delivered to Bembridge by road. Aircraft 2317 was built up at Bembridge from detail components, which puts the whole assembly sequence, the tooling and the quality gates in Britten-Norman’s own hands.

Pete Dowers, who has worked on the Bembridge line for almost 50 years, was one of the fitters who built it. It was the 500th aircraft of his career.

‘I joined in September 1978 at the apprentice training school (British Hovercraft Corporation) and my first major project was the Belgian Army camera floor conversions. In 1981, we delivered the first turbine Islander,’ he said. ‘For 48 years the airframes have arrived here and we have finished them off. This is the first one we have put together ourselves from the components up, and I stood on the apron and watched it fly. Five hundred aircraft, and this is the one I will remember. It is a special one.’

The flight test programme continues at Bembridge, covering the performance and handling of the aircraft and the short take-off and landing characteristics for which the Islander is known. On completion, 2317 will move into the final stages of its programme ahead of delivery to the Falkland Islands Government Air Service, which will fly it between settlements across the archipelago.

A second airframe is progressing through the Bembridge line and components for the aircraft behind it are already on order. Britten-Norman has invested in tooling and facilities and has grown from around 100 people in 2024 to around 180 today. The company holds letters of intent with operators across the regional passenger and special mission sectors.

Richard Milne, Chief Operating Officer at Britten-Norman, said, ‘Assembling the aircraft here is what lets us lift the rate. It puts the build sequence, the tooling and the quality gates in our own hands, and it takes a road journey across Europe out of the middle of every aircraft. That is what on-time delivery depends on. The learning from this aircraft goes straight into the second one and into every one after that.’