Italian airplane maker Tecnam is eyeing expansion in the U.S. market in the commuter, utility, and training sectors as it continues to build its footprint in Italy. At Tecnam’s 75-year anniversary in May celebrating the aviation heritage of its Pascale founding family, managing director Giovanni Pascale Langer told AIN that while the company has a long history in Europe, it is still expanding its visibility in North America.
The company opened its U.S. operation in 2014 and at the time was selling a few of its aircraft per year in the market. Since then, sales in the region have grown to about 80 units annually, he noted.
To help bolster the effort, Tecnam recently appointed Urva Aviation based at Pompano Beach Airpark (KPMP) in Florida to serve as its exclusive dealer for sales and service in the state. Part of the X-Flight Aeronautical Solutions group that has bases throughout Argentina, Urva Aviation has been at KPMP since 2021 and was created to manage Tecnam business.
While it is growing its presence in the U.S., Tecnam is rapidly expanding in Italy with the construction of new facilitates to accommodate the ramp-up of its P-Mentor trainer and 11-seat P2012 piston twin.
Under construction in front of the Tecnam factory in Capua, Italy, has been a modern headquarters building and a 16,000-sq-m (172,000-sq-ft) production facility that will come online later this year. Also under development is a 2,000-sq-m flight-test facility that will enable the company to bring its test aircraft closer to the runway. Though the runway is a grass strip right now, it will also be receiving a makeover with concrete pavement, according to Langer.
The changes are enabling Tecnam to consolidate and boost production as it expands the market for the P2012 and brings the P-Mentor trainer to the U.S. The P2012 has drawn strong interest in the U.S. with carriers such as Cape Air, which has ordered up to 100.
In fact, Tecnam recently delivered two P2012 Traveller aircraft to Pacific Air Charters in Hawaii. The first was handed over in August, followed by a second landing in Hawaii last month following a 14-hour 57-minute flight from Santa Maria, California. A third is being assembled for the Hawaiian air charter operator, which has 24 more of the airplanes on option.
In Hawaii for just 10 days, the first was put to work to transport thousands of pounds of food, medicine, and other supplies to Maui in the aftermath of the wildfires there.
Outside the U.S., Tecnam also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Apex Aviation in Taiwan for a special-mission P2012 Sentinel SMP that would be used for surveillance and maritime patrolling with IMSAR mission equipment.
Based in Taitung, Apex originally purchased a P2012 for skydiving and aerial tourism in cooperation with the Taitung government in 2022 and a second P2012 in ambulance configuration was delivered in June. The company has a further six options for the aircraft.
The latest agreement for the P2012 SMP calls for equipping these airplanes with two EO/IR cameras, a power box to feed all systems, radar, infrared sensor, AIS sensor, and data downlink.
While the market has been expanding for the P2012, Tecnam also recently took the wraps off the P-Mentor IFR two-seat single in the U.S. The company brought the P-Mentor to EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh as it has been in the final throes of U.S. certification, following EASA approval in 2022.
Touting the aircraft as the first Part 23-certified model designed for the training market since the Cessna 152, Tecnam already had a U.S. backlog of more than 100 before it arrived at Oshkosh. The company plans to increase production of the P2012 to two a month and the P-Mentor to nine once the new factory is fully running.
Tecnam’s event in May hosted dealers, vendors, and journalists at its factory in Capua to honor of the legacy of founders Luigi and Giovanni Pascale, who established their first aircraft business, Partenavia, in 1948. Tecnam was founded in 1986 by the Pascales after Partenavia was faltering and bought by the Italian government.
Originally establishing Tecnam to supply parts to Partenavia and other manufacturers, the Pascale brothers returned to aircraft manufacturing with the light aircraft, the P92, which became so successful that it eclipsed all the other aircraft sold from the original Partenavia—some 2,800 were delivered, compared with a little more than 1,000 from the original company the brothers founded in 1948.
In all, Tecnam and the former Partenavia company have delivered some 7,500 aircraft for the light-sport, general aviation, training, and commercial markets.