Pipistrel’s Alpha Trainer takes off

After the successful conclusion of its test flight program, Pipistrel has released its newest aircraft, the Pipistrel Alpha Trainer.

The name “Pipistrel Alpha Trainer” describes the exact purpose of this new aircraft designed for flying schools, company officials said. The aircraft has been engineered with the “essence of training” as its primary design goal, they said, noting training has to start somewhere, just like the modern alphabet starts with the letter “A.”

The original idea was to offer one training aircraft that was suitable for markets all over the world, enabling Pipistrel to mass-produce the aircraft, which would drastically lower production costs and, consequentially, the final market price, company officials said. “But after discussing this option with our distributors, we realized this was not possible, because the rules and standards in some markets were very different from the legislation in other countries. We decided to offer the same aircraft in two different versions, with different MTOW and different avionics packs.”

In the markets and countries that have the FAA-LSA (or adaptation of ASTM rules) categories we offer the 1,212 lbs. MTOW version; and in countries that adhere to the UL LTF standards or similar we will make available the European Ultralight/Microlight version with the MTOW of 472.5 kg.

For more information: Pipistrel.si

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