Taneja Aerospace and Aviation (TAAL) has launched what is believed to be India's first fractional-ownership scheme aimed at the corporate-aviation market.
The company, a subsidiary of engineering company Indian Seamless, has set up the Netair scheme based on three of its own P68s - built locally under licence from Partenavia of Italy.
The aircraft will be available from April, when the first of the fully-indigenously produced light twin-engined aircraft is rolled out on the 1,280m (4,200ft) runway, which is part of TAAL's production site at Hosur, near Bangalore.
The company stopped assembling P68s from kits produced in Italy earlier this year, and is about to start cutting metal on the first of ten locally -built aircraft planned to be available in 1997. Recent expansion of the factory allows production of up to 20 a year of the various P68 variants.
A similar corporate-jet scheme, using two Citationjets, is also under way, with presentations being made to several of the major companies which are located in the Bangalore/Madras area.
TAAL, which has been a Cessna agent in India since 1995, says that it is close to making its first corporate-jet sale - a Bravo - and has also secured its first Caravan customer. As the recently appointed Commander sales agent, it has also just sold its first 114Bsingle.
TAAL is also linked with the Indian National Aerospace Laboratories in the all-composite Hansa ab initio trainer, due for certification soon.
The company's first graduates are about to emerge from a new pilot-training school at Hosur. It is also producing prototype composite airframes for the Nishant unmanned air vehicle (UAV) which is now being built by the Indian Government (see box).
Airframes for six of the seven UAV prototypes have already been delivered to the Government under the initial contract.
Source: Flight International
