Thursday, 21. April – Certificate handover ceremony and press conference
Pipistrel’s aircraft Virus SW 121 received the EASA full Type Certificate on a ceremony at the Pipistrel’s booth at 12:00.
The first speaker was Ivo Boscarol, CEO of Pipistrel, who thanked everyone who contributed to this amazing project, especially project leaders
Mr. Vid Plevnik, Head Of Airworthiness & Chief Engineer at Pipistrel and dr. Tine Tomazic, Director of Pipistrel Research&Development Institute.
Ivo was happy and grateful that after 27 years of existence, after obtaining the EASA DOA, after countless hours of hard work of the excellent Pipistrel team, after thousands of documents produced and after millions of Euro spent, his wish and vision was fulfilled and Pipistrel was able to get the first EASA Full Type Certificate for the 2-seat aircraft Virus SW 121.
Ivo also emphasized the role of EASA and thanked the team for their professional and friendly support throughout the process.
The next speaker was Her Excellency the Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia in Germany, Marta Kos Marko, who visited the EXPO together with Mr. Jože Keček, Consul Of The Republic Of Slovenia In Munich.
The Pipistrel Team is very happy and feels honored that Her Excellency recognized the importance of the event. Her presence gave the certificate also a political value. We are proud that Her Excellency took time to visit all the Slovenian exhibitors at the fair. In her speech she stressed the importance of cooperation between Germany and Slovenia.
Mr. Vid Plevnik, Head Of Airworthiness & Chief Engineer at Pipistrel introduced the aircraft. He described it as the most advanced CS-CLSA two-seat aircraft available in the market today and the first ever fully type-certified CS-CLSA aircraft. The SW 121 is the first two-seat aircraft with an autopilot and a wide range of high-class technical equipment.
After that it was time for the big moment:
the EASA Executive Manager Mr. Patrik Ky handed out the Type-Certificate document to Ivo Boscarol.
Of course such an important event can’t so by without some celebration, so all the present shared a glass of champagne or wine!
After the event all the present were also greeted by a very interesting visitor at the booth.
Mrs Melanie Demelius is already a happy owner of a Pipistrel Sinus and has now placed an order for a SW 121 (serial nr. 04). Do you know what she does as her job?
She is an Airbus 380 co-pilot! Wow!
We are very happy when the existing Pipistrel aircraft owners decide to place new orders, because that means that they are satisfied with our products and value them enough to continue using them.
The Virus SW 121 had to endure a whole lot of tests to get the Type Certificate… but as it turned out, the undercarriage had to go through one final test of extreme load&stress! Mr. Michael Coates, the US general distributor for Pipistrel, and our customer Mr. Manuel Vabourakis from Greece decided to thoroughly test the endurance and the available cockpit space of a SW 121. Their combined weight was over 300kg!
Wednesday, 20. April – afternoon
Panthera is the future!
Aerokurier, one of Europe’s leading General Aviation magazines, does an online reader survey every year to find out which plane should be awarded with the title „Aircraft of the future“. We are proud to announce that in the category „Single engine Aircraft of the Future“ the readers chose Pipistrel’s Panthera as the no.1 aircraft of the future – for the THIRD year in a row! Thank you!
Wednesday, 20. April
The booth is ready, the aircraft are shining and awaiting curious visitors!
Meanwhile, Panthera outside is taking visitors, future owners and media representatives for a ride into the sky!
Tuesday, 19. April
A large truck, two vans, several people with their own cars and a few aircraft trailers… All this was getting prepared and packed all day long and the leaving one by one to the journey across half of Europe from Pipistrel to the AERO expo area. The guys who were up there first, especially the German Pipistrel team, spent the entire day building and preparing the booth.
