![]() What makes you stand out from the competition, how are Tecnam planes different? How do you look at competition? Ideas for a new aircraft or versions always come in the same way: NEVER through market investigations, but walking around the company with Tecnam CEO, Tecnam Managing Director, and my great colleague Michele… we started more programs and new aircraft talking in the hangars, than in meeting rooms! How do you get ideas? What are the main challenges for you when envisioning a new airplane? ![]() P2006 was followed by P2008, Eaglet, P2010, Astore, P2012, Traildragger, P92MkII, P-Mentor, and lots, hundreds of variants, options, and versions! So yes, it is almost a new aircraft design every year while we keep all the others “forever young”! Besides my “kid”, the FR-01, I started working at Tecnam in 2005, the same week the P2006T twin engine program was decided. What do I love the most? Every working hour or minute spent everywhere in the company that is not a “web call” (I hate those and luckily most of the time I manage to escape from them!).ĭoes Tecnam design a new aircraft every year? What I love the most is the very early stage of a new aircraft, or new aircraft version design, where you can see a mix of hand-made, CAD-made, and prototypes shaping what the next aircraft will look like… It is always curious to look back to those early stage drawings when the aircraft is already completed and on the market and think “how much work that was and what a great journey it has been!”… My role, as you said absolutely appropriately, is just wonderful: even if there are many responsibilities, the chance to always do, and learn new things is priceless. You have a wonderful role as a head of Research and Development at Tecnam. The first idea is always to build a product that must be fit for the scope: whatever the end user is, a flight school, an airline, or a special mission operator, our design always start with their business in mind and, of course, with the need to bring Italian style to everyone! But designing with style is something almost automatic for “Italians”! The timeline varies and is heavily dependent on the aircraft’s complexity… What is the path from the aircraft vision to the product? ![]() Depending on the activity that needs to be performed, I used to fly with our test pilots or sometimes by myself with the experimental single-engine small aircraft like P92 MkII. I also have the pleasure and privilege to fly Tecnam’s new airplanes. I used to fly the aircraft I designed for myself a lot. I got my first license in 2001, then others and those called “rating”, for example, “multi-engine” and so on… I am now 39, and I am a pilot for more than half of my life, which makes me happy!ĭo you test planes you design and fly them yourselves? When he passed away, the time count was 12 years of everyday work together! It was there that I found out that all “P” airplanes have been designed by a professor coming from Naples, my town! I started to read about him and his former company, Partenavia, as well as his new company, Tecnam, both founded with his brother… at that time I was 13, and professor Pascale was already 76! No chance to attend Engineering studies and catch him as my teacher! So more or less, at that time I started to dream of becoming professor Pascale´s “student”, a General Aviation aircraft designer, and a pilot!įor the first two, the chance would have been: becoming a Tecnam engineer… and this was my dream since I was 13: not just becoming an engineer, but becoming an engineer working at Tecnam, with the hope to spend as much time as possible with Professor Pascale. Then my father bought me a magazine with aircraft cutaways and he saw that I literally spent days watching those pictures… It was 1986, and I was 3 years old… I was constantly asking to be able to fly with a “small aircraft”, and finally I got this experience “present” when I was 13 years old when I flew in an old “Partenavia P66”. Probably because where I used to live as a child, airplanes flew over the house, then disappeared just two seconds later behind the building in front of us (in Naples there are many buildings close to each other!)… So this always increased the curiosity about “where they went” behind that building. : I was born with a passion for aircraft. Did you dream of being an aircraft designer? What propelled you to your journey?
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