BANGALORE: Hansa New Generation (NG) aircraft, designed and developed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL), Bengaluru, successfully made its maiden flight from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) airport on Friday.

The aircraft flew at an altitude of 4000 ft. and gained a speed of 80 knots before it made a successful landing after about 20 minutes.

"Captain Amit Dahiya, test pilot, who has flown the maiden flight has expressed his happiness and said that all the flight parameters were found normal and it is a Text Book flight," a press release read.

The unique features of Hansa-NG are a glass cockpit with cabin comfort, high efficient digitally controlled engine, electrically operated flaps, long-endurance, low acquisition, and low operating cost.

As per the release, CSIR-NAL has already received 72 "Letters of Intents" from various Flying Clubs and the aircraft will be certified within the next 4 months before it gets inducted into service.

"The flight was monitored in telemetry by senior officers and scientists/engineers from DGCA, CEMILAC, and CSIR-NAL," the release informed.

Dr Shekhar C Mande, Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) and Director General, CSIR, while congratulating Team NAL said, "This successful milestone flight is the culminated efforts of the CSIR-NAL design team, flight test crew, and DGCA with support from ASTE."

He further mentioned that CSIR-NAL has already identified a private partner and series production will start soon while also applauding the efforts of Abbani Rinku, the Project Director of HANSA and Team NAL for the tireless efforts which made this possible.