N219 Indonesian Aerospace First Flight
N219 Indonesian Aerospace First Flight. The N219, the first ever 100 percent Indonesian aircraft has successfully conducted first flight on Wednesday, 16 August 2017. The first flight taken at Husein Sastranegara air field in Bandung at 9.00 am, local time. The air field is the part of Indonesian Aerospace (aircraft manufacturer) facility as well.N219 takeoff at first flight test
N219 successfully touched down runway
The N-219 was developed from the CASA C-212 Aviocar and, like the design, is also of all metal construction. It is stated that it will have the largest cabin volume in its class (6.50 x 1.82 x 1.70 m) along with a flexible door system to allow a multi-purpose mission for passenger and cargo transportation.
The aircraft is designed to meet the FAR 23 (commuter category aircraft) and will be certified in 2016, with the first deliveries scheduled for 2017. Indonesia Aerospace has also planned to have a first deployment of the N-219 aircraft on August 10 2015 coinciding with Indonesia's National Technology Day. The foreign certification will be carried out later with the help of EADS CASA. The initial price was expected to be USD 4 million each, while the expected development budget was about USD 30 million for 15 aircraft. The expected price was subsequently adjusted to USD 5 million.
Due to the shortage of funds, the USD 65 million loans to develop the N-219 were obtained from the USD 1 billion Qatar-Indonesia Joint Investment Fund in 2006.
In June 2011, the Minister of Industry requested that the Indonesian government provide USD 6.9 million to complete the N-219 prototype. Budi Darmadi, General Manager of the Advanced Technology Seed Industry of the Ministry of Industry, said he believed the plane had good market potential due to the age of most other aircraft in its class.
The total market for the N-219 is forecast as 97 civil aircraft and 57 military aircraft. In August 2013, the company announced that it had obtained an order for 100 aircraft from Lion Air for delivery in 2016. On 13 April 2015, three memoranda of understanding were signed between the manufacturer and Nusantara Buana Air for 20 aircraft with 10 in Option, with Aviastar Mandiri for 20 aircraft with ten options and with Trigana Air Service for ten aircraft with five options.
The launch of the N-219 to the public was scheduled for November 10, 2015, after many delays, but this was delayed indefinitely due to the lack of readiness of President Jokowi to officiate.
A prototype had been completed by November 2015, but no official deployment had yet been carried out, nor had flight testing begun.
Officials announced that the prototype was completed in early 2016. It was scheduled to make its first flight in late 2016, however, due to technical issues the event was postponed. Indonesia Aerospace stated that they were "busy" and were trying to complete other orders on helicopters and airplanes, which made the production line "overloaded".
In August 2016, officials stated that the N219 prototype had entered its testing phase in order to obtain its certification. Airbus Industrie stated that it would help the certification process.
On January 23, 2017, the first flight of the aircraft was postponed until March 2017. This plan was later canceled and rescheduled to occur in April 2017. According to officials, the design of the aircraft wired and Landing gear were the cause of delays.
Later on, whole obstacles and delays are vanished. The N219 successfully flight tested about 40 minutes. Engineers will take a role after the flight test. Hopefully, N219 could be delivered and enter service soon.