Introduced in the early 2000s, Tecnam’s P2002 Sierra quickly became a popular aircraft from this Italian manufacturer. It quickly became used as a trainer in multiple flying organisations around the world including some military forces.
Apparently the P2002 made up nearly 70% of Tecnam’s production during that time.
Having a gross take-off weight of only 600 kg, giving a useful load of just over 260 kg, this somewhat limited the aircraft’s capabilities except for initial basic training.
In April 2022 at AERO Friedrichshafen, Tecnam unveiled the P-Mentor looking very much like a modernised P2002, but with increased gross weight, performance and avionic capabilities compared to its predecessor. The P-Mentor has close to 290 kg of useful load.
The P-Mentor also introduced improvements like a constant speed propeller whilst retaining 100 hp and an EFIS as standard equipment. This opens the way in Australia for the aircraft to be used for IFR training.
The first P-Mentor arrived in Australia at the beginning of February 2023, and after being assembled in Brisbane and test flown, the aircraft was ferried to the Australian International Airshow at Avalon, where it attracted quite a bit of interest on the Tecnam stand.
After the aircraft’s return from Avalon to the Gold Coast, Australian Flying was happy to the have the opportunity to fly this new addition to the list of various aircraft available for training in Australia, where there are a large number of aging GA aircraft that are now starting to incur expensive and increasing maintenance costs to remain useful in this role.
Just look at how many flying schools are still using aging C150/172 and Piper PA-28s or have to use smaller–sometimes inappropriate–two-seat aircraft and still need larger types for IFR and cross-country training.
Many designs work well in the European environment, but lack the certification or performance requirements for Australia. The
