09.04.2009.

First test flight of Lasta 95

Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac stated at Batajnica air port today, after attending the first test flight of Lasta 95 training air craft, that this was an excellent air craft which would serve for the training of home and foreign soldiers from all over the world. The promotional flight was attended by the Chief of SAF GS LTG Miloje Miletic with his coworkers and the top officials from the defense system as well as numerous reporters. The plane was operated by Lt. Col. Salko Hadzic from the Flight Testing Center of the Technical Testing Center.

- Only 4 or 5 European countries produce this type of planes, and only ten in the whole world make these planes.. So this makes us the country with “wings of it own”, its own aviation industry we take great pride in. this means introducing a new plane into the training process, which means 6 times less money spent on the training of every pilot per hour. For example, an hour on Galeb G4 costs 2000 EUR, while on Lasta it costs only 300”, said Minister adding that this was another way of the Ministry’s contribution to the savings in the budget.

Lt. Col. Hadzic said that some 20 flights had completed all factory tests, while the continuation of development research is also expected. Hadzic expects this process to be finished as soon as possible so that Lasta could become operationally functional.

The attention of the domestic public was drawn to Lasta 95 when it was first represented at the arms fair Partner 2007. In July last year this became the main topic when Yugoimport SDPR first signed the contract with the Iraqi Ministry of Defense on arms export. This contract envisions that 20 propeller planes Laste-95 for training be exported into Iraq. The manufacturer of the final stages of the air craft and the main manufacturer is DOO Utva, Aviation Industry “Pancevo”. The plane is in the final stages of testing inn the Technical Testing Center. The first flight was performed on 5 February this year.

The domestic training plane “Lasta 95” will be used for selection of candidates at the Military Academy, and for the basic and elementary training of pilots. It has low landing and take-off velocity, and even an inexperienced pilot can fly it.

The plane’s characteristics and modern equipment enable pilot’s training for all purposes; in basic, figure, navigation, and instrumental flying, basic techniques of night flying, second-category instrumental landing, and basic shooting elements, as well as missile targeting and bombardment.
It has been designed according to the latest world standards, equipped with the state of the art electronic equipment which meets all standards and enables GPS and radio navigation.

The air craft’s fuselage is 7.97 m long, the wing span is 9,71 m and its height is 3.16 m with wings covering the area of 11.9 square meters. It is operated by Lycoming AEIO-540-L1B5D, a 6-cylinder engine.

It takes off and lands on concrete and prepared grass airstrips. It has position lights, landing reflector, and anti-crash lights. Landing can be achieved in complex weather conditions, of the second category day and night based on the existing ILS system and GPS devices. This aircraft’s life span is 6000 flight hours or 20 years, with an optimal 300 hours per year. The general repair of the engine and structure after 1400 flight hours.