Pancevo-based Utva to make gyrocopter for Americans

By the end of this year, a new product will be released from the production halls of the Utva aircraft factory in Pancevo - a new-generation gyrocopter, as a result of agreements reached with the American company VaultGyro. The Pancevo aircraft factory will completely design, build a prototype, conduct flight tests and complete the certification of the aircraft for the needs of the investor in cooperation with the Civil Aviation Directorate of the Republic of Serbia.

The project, which was negotiated for a long time, according to the new company director, Aleksandar Petrovic, began under the auspices and with the great support of the parent company Jugoimport SDPR, and culminated in the signing of a direct contract.

– For the design of the new aircraft, we will use a gyrocopter that flew in America as a test, in order to test various systems and acquire knowledge, while developing the project in parallel. Utva has extensive experience, but we have not yet built an aircraft with a turboprop engine, and we will also adopt the technology for the production of rotor blades – explains Petrovic, noting that the new project was preceded by 2015, when Jugoimport SDPR invested in the development of the factory’s capacity for designing and manufacturing aircraft.

After successfully completing the serial production of the “Lasta” aircraft, the aeronautics company from Pancevo last year also certified the four-seater “Sova,” which also flies abroad, and is now entering the design of a new aircraft that resembles a helicopter, but is more like an airplane in terms of flight performance.

The gyrocopter, the interviewee explains, practically takes the positive aspects of an airplane whose maintenance cost is lower, but which does not have the ability to take off and land vertically, for which it also requires special infrastructure. On the other hand, a helicopter has this ability, but is expensive to maintain, while a gyrocopter combines the best of both aircraft, which gives it wide application.

The project that Utva is carrying out is both conceptual and envisages three basic and one additional version of the aircraft. The basic one would serve as a transport for the pilot and four passengers, or cargo in the rear, the second is a medical gyrocopter, which would transport the patient, two technicians and the pilot, and there are also luxury and military variants.

– This is a project with an initial budget of several million, but it is also a development one. We have agreed on the serial production of a certain number of units here at the factory, which in the medium term also allows us to invest in the renovation of capacities, which we have already started, because construction work is underway on 10,000 square meters of the facility. One of the goals is also positioning within the country, primarily expanding cooperation with our most important potential customer, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia, with which we already cooperate, whether in terms of training aircraft, or the “Lasta” aircraft, or some of its new versions. Also, the new product will mean jobs for other factories, closely linked to Utva, and finally, the fact that an investment group from America is investing in this project will contribute to the political and economic cooperation of the two countries – emphasizes Petrovic.

Few countries in the world have an aviation industry, and from Greece to Slovenia, Utva from Pancevo is the only one in the region. The current project is also an added value to Utva’s new product, because, they emphasize here, it will mean the use of the most advanced technology, but also the training of both employees and young aviation engineering staff, as well as technicians from technical schools, through dual education.

The new director of Utva emphasizes improvement as the engine of the factory’s development in the future along with the modernization of Utva’s airport, about twenty kilometers from Belgrade.

– This project is important for us, because it is the path towards the strategy of developing Utva into a center that would bring together more aviation activities. This is also a step in the right direction to be recognized as a company that can carry out the most complex and intricate projects in the aircraft industry, but also that Serbia is able to certify, or homologate, a new product, and for it to be recognized all over the world – concludes Aleksandar Petrovic, director of the Utva Aircraft Factory in Pancevo.

Utva-avio industrija d.o.o. Pančevo

Jugoimport-SDPR Beograd

Direktorat civilnog vazduhoplovstva Srbije

Utva

Jugoimport SDPR

Civil Aviation Directorate of the Republic of Serbia

VaultGyro

Aleksandar Petrović

gyrocopter

gyrocopter manufacture