Tecnam has delivered the first three P2006T piston-twins in a special-mission (SMP) configuration to an undisclosed US aerial mapping company. An order for 30 aircraft, plus options for a further 24 units, was placed in June as part of the customer’s fleet expansion and modernisation programme.
The Italian airframer says the P2006T SMP is equipped with a hatch to accommodate multiple sensor packages, allowing it to be adapted for different missions.
“Given the age of existing sensor platforms, costs to operate them and changes in the requirements of the sensors themselves, the P2006T is the right platform at the right time for bringing geospatial data sensing up to date,” says Tecnam chief executive Paolo Pascale.
Tecnam
The P2006T SMP was introduced by Tecnam in 2015 as version of its baseline P2006 civil aircraft, which was launched six years earlier. The SMP is designed to perform surveillance, observation, aerial mapping and other special-mission tasks.
To date, Tecnam has delivered 20 examples to customers in Asia, Europe, South America and the USA. These include the 2016 delivery of a single unit to the Dominican Republic air force, which is used in a surveillance role.
More than 200 P2006Ts of all variants have been handed over to date. The high-wing aircraft is currently the Capua-based manufacturer’s only in-production piston-twin.
The clean-sheet P2012 Traveller will bring this line-up to two when it enters service in 2019. The first prototype has accumulated more than 250h since its debut flight in July 2016; Tecnam is now preparing the second test aircraft for a December maiden sortie.
Source: Flight International
