To give impetus to trainer aircraft National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bengaluru and Mesco Aerospace Ltd., New Delhi have signed an agreement for the design, development, production and marketing of two seat Hansa-NG aircraft. NAL which comes under CSIR is expected to ease the availability of indigenous aircraft for pilot training to obtain private pilot and commercial pilot licenses
According to a press release issued in Bengaluru on Friday the aircraft will be ready for first flight in the next 11-13 months and will be certified under DGCA for commercial flights by March 2020. Post certification, the HansaNG shall be manufactured by Mesco Aerospace under a license agreement. Mesco Aerospace would also set-up service centre for Hansa and undertake maketing of HansaNG in India and abroad. As per the recent market reports, the immediate market potential for 2 seat aircraft in India is about 70-80 aircraft. The targeted selling cost of the aircraft would be around `80 lakhs for the basic version and `100 lakhs for fully loaded version, the release said.
The Hansa-NG can also be used in bird reconnaissance at airfield, cadet training, coastal surveillance and hobby flying in the country. CSIR-NAL has built totally 14 production version 2 seat aircraft of Hansa-3 from 2001 to 2010 out of which 11 were delivered to DGCA, one aircraft to IIT-Kanpur and two aircraft are with CSIR-NAL out of which one has been leased to M/s Mesco Aerospace Ltd. during Aero India 2017.
According to press communiqué the pilots who have flown Hansa-3 aircraft have expressed that the aerodynamics, power and controls harmony makes flying very comfortable and the aircraft has got excellent flying characteristics. They suggested a few upgrades/modifications to Hansa-3 aircraft by implementing latest technologies and enhancing its roll and to make it more useful as a trainer aircraft.
Now CSIR-NAL jointly with Mesco Aerospace Ltd will modify Hansa-3 aircraft by incorporating new technologies and bring out Hansa-NG (New Generation), which will satisfy the requirements of flying clubs for obtaining PPL (Personal Pilot License) & CPL (Commercial Pilot License) by the young generation.
NAL director Jitendra Jadhav said this new aircraft developed here is going to change the complexity of flying for the trainee pilots and will have all the modern systems incorporated in it. Manoj Pandey, COO of the Mesco Aerospace signed the collaborative agreement.