Indonesian-Made N219 Successfully Conducts Test Flight

The N219 aircraft, seen here after completing its maiden flight on 16 August 2017 – Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN)) photo.

Bandung, West Java, MINA – Indonesian National Aviation and Outerspace Institute (Lapan) hailed the success of the test flight of its N219, made and designed in cooperation with PT Dirgantara Indonesia, on Wednesday.

This will become the momentum for the awakening of research and technology in Indonesia, Lapan head, Thomas Djamaluddin, stated at a press conference.

“With the success of the first flight of N219, we can now declare that today was the second awakening of technology (following the success of N250),” he noted.

He remarked that Lapan and state-owned aircraft industry PT Dirgantara Indonesia had started coordinating a plan to make and design N219 in 2014.

“We started the big project in 2014. At that time, we planned to make four N219s for flight and land tests,” he added.

He revealed that Lapan also plans to develop N219 later into an amphibious plane to enable landing on a small island.

We wish to use the plane to serve small islands to improve their connectivity. We will develop the amphibious version of the aircraft to enable it to land on the beach on islands that have no airstrip,” he explained.

Indonesia is an archipelago with around 17 thousand islands spread across the country.

At around 9 a.m. on Wednesday, or a day before the country’s Independence anniversary, he personally witnessed the test flight of the aircraft at Bandungs Husein Sastranegara airport in West Java.

Thomas remarked that the construction of the aircraft was fully done by Indonesian technicians.
(T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)