L-159T1 piloted by first representative of customer

07/08/2007 | Today, at 9:29 a.m., the first employee of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic (MoD), Chief Officer of the State Authority for Quality Management Zdenek Ouda, took off from the Vodochody Aerodrome piloting the L-159, T1 version.

Today, at 9:29 a.m., the first employee of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic (MoD), Chief Officer of the State Authority for Quality Management Zdenek Ouda, took off from the Vodochody Aerodrome piloting the L-159, T1 version, within the running schooling of the flight personnel for the new training type, designed for the Czech Air Force (CzAF). Rostislav Stroin, AERO Vodochody a.s. (AERO) test pilot, who has so far reached around one thousand flight hours on the L-159 aircraft, was in the seat of the instructor.

“It is a great training aircraft, which fully meets the assignment – to design the aircraft as similar to the single-seat light combat L-159, A version, as possible. The only problem I see is that it was supposed to be the first aircraft – it should have preceded the order of the single-seaters,” said Zdenek Ouda after the 51-minute flight in the L-159T1.

“The flight was fully in accordance with the flight task. I am very satisfied with the degree of preparedness and professional attitude,” said Rostislav Stroin after landing. “The fact that the Czech Air Force will have pilots-instructors significantly contributes to the perfection of the L-159 flight training,” Stroin added.

The schooling of the ground and flight personnel for the new training version – the L-159T1 – runs in AERO in several phases. A total of 32 employees of the ground personnel were schooled from July 2 – 20. On July 30, schooling of four CzAF pilots-instructors and two pilots-representatives of the State Quality Management started and will be completed on August 24, 2007 at the latest.

“Operation evaluation will follow, checking maintenance procedures, documentation and utility characteristics of the L-159T1 aircraft,” specified Milos Trnobransky, AERO Military Program Chief Designer adding that “not earlier than after the evaluation the aircraft can be delivered to the customer, the MoD. All four L-159T1 units will be delivered to the customer by the end of this year.

The two-seat training T1 version is designed to maximally resemble the single-seat L-159A, using maximum of the L-159A parts (tail unit and wing). The fuselage, equipped with flight control system in both cockpits, is built new.