Tarasol

**Tarasol Aircraft Company**, more commonly known as just Tarasol, is an American-Romanian aircraft manufacturer based in Silicon Valley of San Francisco, California. The manufacturer produces civilian, cargo, and military aircraft. Tarasol is one of the largest and significant aircraft companies based on 2015 and 2018 revenue.

Tarasol was created on March 16, 1978 by American Blake H. Smith and Romanian Andrei A. Baciu. The aircraft company was created to compete against Boeing, Airbus, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed. The present corporation was caused by a merger of Tarasol Aircraft Company and Ileyius Aircraft Company. The name was originally supposed to be **Tarasol Ileyius Aircraft Company**, but was later dropped by Tarasol.

As of December 2023, the headquarters are located just east of Sylvan Park in Silicon Valley.

## History

### Origins

Tarasol Aircraft Company was founded on March 16, 1978 by Blake H. Smith and Andrei A. Baciu. Both Smith and Baciu were from Boeing Aircraft Company, and since Baciu was employed in Boeing, the two of those men became close friends. They decided to leave in 1976 to make their own aircraft company.

In 1979, Smith and Baciu began developing the Model 10 and Model 11, the first two aircraft to be produced by Tarasol. The aircraft was meant to compete against the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 Super 80 (now known as the MD-80). In the same year, Tarasol acquired **Bremen Intelligence Holdings Company** (BIHC), an aerospace research organization.

In 1981, Tarasol acquired parts of Beechcraft, especially the Baron 58. The aircraft was temporarily renamed to the Model 303, but received a lot of backlash and controversy.

In 1983, Tarasol partnered with Delta Airlines to make the Model 16-200, an aircraft that succeeded the previous generation Model 11. The aircraft sold 132 units between 1983 and 1995.

On March of 1996, Tarasol was in a financial crisis that crippled Tarasol Aircraft Company. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 1996 when revenue fell down by 10.2% monthly.

In 1998, Tarasol started to become successful with the new Tarasol A-Series by introducing the Tarasol Model A-1 (now known as Tarasol A1).

### Partnership with Boeing

In 2001, Boeing partnered with Tarasol and Brixius Aircraft to create Militarica, an aerospace company that specializes in military aircraft, especially light aircraft, including fighters and attackers.

## Products

### Model naming

All aircraft introduced by Tarasol had an unusual naming system of their aircraft products. From the Model 10 to the Model 98, the models were following a Model XX name format, whilst Models 138/158/198 had the Model 1XX format. However, when the Tarasol A Series came out, the name format changed to an A-X format.

The majority of all Tarasol models have a full model name followed by a hyphen and three digits that represent a variation of the model, for example, Tarasol Model 18-120 or the Model 37-300. Some airlines have customer codes, just like Boeing does. For example, if Trans World Airlines were to buy a Tarasol Model 18-200, the name of the aircraft will be Tarasol Model 18-231. If Southwest Airlines were to buy a Model 97, the aircraft's name will be renamed to Tarasol Model 97-1H4.

Few aircraft from the pre-A Series era and A Series aircraft have additional letters that are added as a suffix to the aircraft name. "ER" would mean that the model has extended range, and "LR" would mean that the model has a longer range than the extended range. For freighter airplanes like the Model 16 and many A-Series freighter airplanes, they have the "F" symbol, meaning freighter. "C" is used for convertible aircraft that can be changed from a passenger aircraft to a cargo aircraft, and "M" for combination aircraft that can carry both cargo and passengers at the same time. The suffix "SR" is used for short range massive aircraft like the A-7 and A-8, whilst "D" is used for domestic transportation only, however Tarasol does not have any short range or domestic aircraft produced yet.

### Aircraft produced by Tarasol

**Tarasol Model 00 Series**

* Tarasol Model 06 - Created on May 8, 1979 (5 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 07 - Created on November 7, 1979 (7 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 10 Series**

* Tarasol Model 10 - Introduced on August 13, 1981 (18 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 11 - Introduced on January 11, 1983 (32 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 15 Series**

* Tarasol Model 15 - Introduced on May 17, 1986 (75 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 16 - Introduced on February 16, 1988 (132 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 17 Series**

* Tarasol Model 17 - Introduced on February 8, 1991 (118 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 18 - Introduced on September 23, 1991 (346 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 19 - Introduced on December 1, 1991 (204 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 38 Series**

* Tarasol Model 38 - Introduced on January 3, 1993 (84 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 39 - Introduced on January 17, 1993 (76 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 58 Series**

* Tarasol Model 58 - Introduced on February 2, 1994 (94 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 61 - Introduced on February 3, 1994 (48 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 78 Series**

* Tarasol Model 77 - Introduced on March 16, 1995 (33 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 78 - Introduced on March 25, 1995 (27 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 98 Series**

* Tarasol Model 98 - Introduced on December 9, 1995 (19 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 99 - Introduced on January 2, 1996 (17 units sold)

**Tarasol Model 1XX Series**

* Tarasol Model 138 - Introduced on July 7, 1995 (24 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 158 - Introduced on August 19, 1995 (15 units sold)
* Tarasol Model 198 - Introduced on September 21, 1995 (17 units sold)

#### **Tarasol A Series**

* Tarasol A1 - Introduced on December 11, 1998 (332 units sold)
* Tarasol A2 - Introduced on March 11, 2000 (264 units sold)
* Tarasol A3 - Introduced on April 14, 2001 (361 units sold)
* Tarasol A4 - Introduced on May 13, 2002 (410 units sold so far)
* **Tarasol A5** **- Introduced on July 16, 2004** **(2,821 units sold so far)**
* Tarasol A6 - Introduced on May 8, 2006 (1,332 units sold so far)
* Tarasol A7 - Introduced on September 9, 2008 (785 units sold so far)
* Tarasol A8 - Introduced on February 7, 2011 (1,344 units sold so far)
* Tarasol A9 - Introduced on August 18, 2013 (980 units ordered, 473 units delivered)
* Tarasol A10 - Introduced on May 14, 2017 (320 units ordered, 292 units delivered)
* Tarasol A11 - Introduced on September 7, 2021 (475 units ordered, 204 units delivered)