Half a century since its first flight and almost two decades after production ended, the latest iteration of one of the most ubiquitous Cold War jet trainers is set to take to the skies. Thousands of pilots for Warsaw Pact air forces and other Soviet allies learned their combat aviation skills in the Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros. Now the Czech company has begun building the first four examples of the L-39NG, or Next Generation – those latest-generation features include a new engine and modern avionics. Aero Vodochody hopes to have the type in flight-test later this year, with service entry targeted for early 2020.
Although no orders had been confirmed at the time of writing, chief executive Giuseppe Giordo – who heads a team of former Leonardo executives brought in by private owner Penta Investments in 2016 to spark new life into the formerly state-run manufacturer – says “final negotiations” are taking place with two customers for a total of 16 aircraft. One of these – perhaps unsurprisingly – is the Czech defence ministry; the other “we cannot name”, says Giordo, who is confident the contracts will be concluded and announced by the end of March.
The L-39NG, launched at the Farnborough air show in 2014, may not look radically different to its predecessor – an incredible 2,900 of which were built in and flown from Aero Vodochody’s factory just outside Prague between the early 1970s and mid-1990s. Some 600 are still in service with about 40 air forces and 20 aerobatic display teams. However, beneath the skin there are plenty of changes. The Russian Ivchenko-Progress turbofan has been replaced with a Williams International FJ44-4M, while Brezhnev-era flightdeck technology makes way for a Genesys Aerosystems glass cockpit.
While US-based Genesys will provide the “basic avionics configuration”, Giordo says “more complex” cockpit suites could be made available on request – Aero Vodochody is talking to Israel Aerospace Industries about one possible solution. Because the Czech company – which is marketing the aircraft in partnership with Czech defence integrator Omnipol – owns the mission computer software, the symbology on the avionics platform can be adapted for students preparing to fly US, European or Russian fighters, he says. “This means we can target both the Western part of the world and the Eastern part.”
In addition, the twin-seat trainer comes with new features such as “zero-zero” Martin-Baker ejection seats and a single-piece canopy from Swiss manufacturer Mecaplex that “creates more space and visibility for the pilot”. An integrated fuel tank “wet” wing extends the aircraft’s range to 1,150nm (2,130km). Some carbonfibre structures have also been introduced – including the engine inlet – which Aero Vodochody is manufacturing in its own composites shop. It is just one of several developments at the company’s factory to prepare for L-39NG production. Nearby is a hangar being converted from a storage facility for L-159s (of which more later) to a final assembly line for the basic jet trainer.
The latest L-39 is “a new airplane”, insists Giordo, who headed the former Leonardo division Alenia Aermacchi from 2011 to 2015. “We have extended its service life three times.” The L-39NG combines the “heritage and performance of a hugely successful airframe with the newest Western technology”, he says. Since its launch three-and-a-half years ago, the programme, he maintains, is “on plan and to cost, and achieving all its milestones with no major technical issues”. Giordo says “contracts have been established with all the suppliers for the industrialisation and support phase”.
Aero Vodochody is pitching the L-39NG in a broad segment that spans the Pilatus PC-21 and Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano high-performance turboprops through to the Leonardo Aircraft M-345 single-engined trainer and M-346 advanced jet trainer. While it does not have the performance and agility of the twin-engined M-346, Giordo maintains the L-39NG is a “jet trainer with a comparative acquisition and operating cost to a turboprop”, with the ability to cover phases one to three of the fighter pilot training syllabus, and even elements of the fourth phase.
COST-EFFECTIVE
As a stop-gap until the L-39NG deliveries begin, Aero Vodochody is offering L-39 operators an upgrade to what it calls the L-39CW. The “intermediate step” retrofit includes the Williams engine and Genesys avionics, which can be transferred to a new-airframe L-39NG when the aircraft reaches its fatigue limit. That way, says Giordo, air forces obtain a modern jet while managing short-term acquisition costs by putting the project on the operating cost line of their budget. At the same time, pilots can train immediately using a modern cockpit. Although no customers have been signed up, “we are discussing this with many current users”, Giordo says.
He admits that major Western air forces are unlikely to be potential customers for the L-39NG. Instead, Aero Vodochody is looking at “smaller central and eastern European countries” as well as markets in the Middle East, Asia, South America and Africa, where the aircraft’s double role, as a trainer and light combat aircraft, will increase its appeal.
The NG comes with five weapon-mounting positions. However, where the “primary role” is light-attack, he says services would be more likely to opt for the L-159 advanced light combat aircraft, which is back in production after a hiatus of almost a decade and a half.
The Honeywell F124-GA-100-powered light subsonic trainer and light-attack jet was designed in the 1990s, with 72 examples ordered for delivery to the Czech Republic from 2000. However, with the nation having joined NATO the year before and under growing pressure to select a Western-built aircraft, priorities changed and in 2003 Prague reduced its fleet to just 24. Aero Vodochody wound up production of the type in the mid-2000s, still without an export customer and with most of the aircraft it had built going into storage.
MARKET POTENTIAL
However, after helping the Czech government sell the surplus aircraft to the Iraqi air force – which has used its L-159s in its campaign against so-called Islamic State militants – and US specialist company Draken International, which provides “aggressor” aircraft and pilots for military exercises, Aero Vodochody re-started the production line in 2016. One twin-seat aircraft was built for Iraq, and a further replacement example will be delivered to the Czech Republic. “We re-activated the supply chain. That was crucial,” says Giordo.
“From day one [restarting L-159 production] was one of our main strategies,” he says. “We are really convinced that in light combat aircraft, [the L-159] is combat-proven and one of the most cost-effective solutions.” While there are no more orders as yet, Giordo says there is “a strong opportunity to achieve international customers”, with Argentina emerging as a potential operator. “We are in long-term discussions in South America and we are also discussing with Asian countries,” he says. Any aircraft ordered now could be delivered within 24-30 months, he adds.
In addition, Aero Vodochody is in negotiations with a “big aeronautical company” to market the aircraft internationally. The most lucrative target could be the US Air Force’s OA-X light-attack/armed reconnaissance requirement, for which a request for proposals has yet to be issued. Giordo says victory would be a “game-changer” and that, with an unnamed US partner in mind to prime a bid, Aero Vodochody “would be ready to transfer the whole programme to the USA”.
The reinvention of Aero Vodochody as an aircraft manufacturer is highly significant for the company and the Czech economy, asserts Giordo. After the ending of L-159 production, the company transformed itself into an aerostructures specialist, concentrating on largely build-to-print work for the likes of the Airbus A320, Alenia Aeronautica C-27J and Sikorsky S-76. While that ensured the cash kept flowing and employees were busy, Aero Vodochody’s expertise as an aircraft designer was under threat as engineers from the company’s Cold War heyday reached retirement or became surplus to requirements.
More lucrative and challenging risk-sharing design contracts on the Bombardier CSeries and Embraer KC-390 helped retain some of Aero Vodochody’s “very high aeronautical capability”, says Giordo, but moving back into aircraft manufacturing is “very important for the value of the company, our international image, our stakeholders and the supply chain”.
While he says abandoning aerostructures would be a “mistake”, Giordo is carrying out a “strategic review” of that business, which will see it focus on “strategic and higher-value” work including the CSeries, KC-390 and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. “We are discussing with our other customers how to terminate [agreements] without causing disruption and giving them time to find alternatives. But by the end of the year the process will be complete,” he says.
Aero Vodochody’s revenues are currently split half and half between aerostructures and military aircraft sustainment. Within five years, Giordo expects the military business to make up about 70%. While he says the aerostructures business remains profitable, partly because of the Czech Republic’s competitive wage rates, he does not want it to define the company. Once the L-39NG and L-159 assembly lines are fully up and running by the early part of the next decade, the almost century-old company “will be back as an OEM”, declares Giordo, the company’s first foreign boss in all that time. “And that,” he says, “is exactly where we want to be.”
TRAINING DIGITAL NATIVES
Aero Vodochody is proud of its recommended training syllabus for the L-39NG, which it says is the first in the industry to be based on the needs of “digital native” students. That means not only a higher reliance on virtual training – with which twentysomethings brought up on video games and social media are entirely comfortable – but a recognition that millennials “use their brains in a different way”.
Trainee aviators are no exception, says Marco Venanzetti, head of the L-39NG programme. “Almost every pilot who learns to fly in the L-39NG will have been born in the 21st century,” he adds. “They have been brought up with digital technology, and the way they learn and see the world is very different to how it was a generation ago.”
Although the company is keeping details of its training syllabus confidential, what this means in practice is that instead of the traditional phase-based learning, the programme covers a series of “events” and “sub-events”, such as how to land in a crosswind or take-off at night, says Venanzetti, a former employee at Alenia Aermacchi. “That way we combine events that in the past belonged to different phases [of flight instruction],” he says. “We think that works best with the multitasking, parallel-thinking mentality of modern pilots.”
Source: Flight International
