The two-seater Hansa New Generation (Hansa-NG) trainer aircraft, being developed by India’s National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), has conducted its maiden flight.

The aircraft, a revamped version of the original Hansa developed three decades ago, had a successful first flight when it took off from the HAL airport and flew for about 20 minutes. During the maiden flight the aircraft touched an altitude of 4,000 feet and gained a speed of 80 knots before landing. “All flight parameters were normal,” NAL said.

“The availability of Hansa-NG will boost pilot training with indigenous aircraft. The defence sector can also use Hansa-NG for cadet training and coastal surveillance,” said R Venkatesh, Head, Business Development CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories.

The aircraft has a glass cockpit, a high-efficient digitally controlled Rotax 912 ISC engine, electrically operated flaps and long endurance. The aircraft is also touted as having low acquisition and low operating costs.

“We have already received 72 letters of intents from various sources and the aircraft will be certified within the next four months before it gets inducted into service,” Venkatesh said.

During the user interactions, the flying community suggested significant modifications on Hansa-3 aircraft to make it more useful as a trainer aircraft. The major modifications proposed were changing analogue instruments to digital state-of-the-art fully glass cockpit display system, reducing the pilot load by changing the mechanically operated flaps to electrical operations, ergonomically designed doors for better ingress and egress, increasing the fuel capacity for higher range and endurance, bubble canopy for an excellent aerial view, and easy to fly with good handling quality and low operations and maintenance cost,” he said.