Diamond Aircraft Industries (Outdoor Exhibit 18) introduced three new utility aircraft here at Farnborough this week–one clean-sheet turboprop single and two models based on the twin-piston DA42. Two of them are on display, including the DART-450 turboprop, which is flying in the daily airshow.
The composite, two-place DART (Diamond Aircraft Reconnaissance Trainer) -450 is intended as a training platform for reconnaissance pilots and for aerobatics, with a +7g, -4 g envelope. It takes its numerical designation from its Ukrainian-based 495-hp Ivchenko-Progress Motor Sich AI-450S engine, but the airframe is designed for powerplants of up to 1,000 hp, said Christian Dries, founder and chairman of the Austria-based company. A remarkably fast development project, it commenced in May of last year and the aircraft had its first flight this May. Certification is expected in 18 months, Dries said, though “in a lot of countries, we don’t need it.” Base price is $3.1 million.
The Pandion, also on display here, is equipped for providing a low-cost coastal patrol platform for combatting illegal fishing operations, which Dries noted is a $7 billion annual trade. The Pandion is equipped with Diamond-developed radar and communications systems, the latter capable of transmitting photos, videos, voice, email and data. Priced at $2.43 million, Dries called it the “cheapest surveillance aircraft which exists for this type of operation.”
The third introduced aircraft, the Geo Prospector, incorporates a magnetometer and gamma-ray sensor, and can monitor radiation levels and detect “landmines and any kind of raw material under the earth in an accuracy five times more sensitive than anything launched before,” said Dries. Its detection powers were tested by planting de-activated landmines underground, and in the process of locating them, flight test crews also found “a lot of undiscovered bombs and landmines from the Second World War,” he said.