Milestone Comes As Company Marks Its 30th Anniversary

In its 30th year in business, Pipistrel has produced the 1,000th aircraft in the Sinus/Virus family, one of several milestones noted during the company's pearl anniversary.

The entire Pipistrel team gathered in front of the hangar at the Pipistrel production facility in Ajdovscina, Slovenia, to mark this historic event. The lady of the day was a gorgeous Pipistrel Sinus Max.

'We are proud that aircraft number 1,000 goes to a far-off destination: Suriname. So far we haven’t sold any Pipistrel aircraft to Suriname, even though we have been selling regularly to 95 countries," said Ivo Boscarol, the General Manager of the Pipistrel group. "So this is yet another great achievement which this aircraft accomplished – now the 96th country has opened its sky to Pipistrel.”

So far, the year of 30th anniversary has been marked with important milestones for Pipistrel:

• In January Pipistrel presented the entirely new visual corporate identity, which marks a new era in the existence of the company – turning towards research and development of different kinds of aircraft, completely environmentally friendly and with vertical take-off and landing with the purpose of urban mobility.
• In February already the first steps were taken towards this goal when Pipistrel and Honeywell signed a memorandum of understanding on the exploration and development of solutions for the urban air mobility market. One of the goals was to integrate Honeywell avionics, navigation, flight control systems connectivity, and other beneficial products and services onto a Pipistrel vertical take-off and landing air vehicle to support fully autonomous operations in the future.

But this doesn’t mean that the present products will be forgotten anytime soon, quite the opposite. "An achievement such as this one – to produce (1,000 aircraft) from the same product family – is a victory in many ways," Boscarol said. "To be in the 'Golden 1000s club' means that the market must accept one’s products and trust them continuously. It means that already when the product is released for the first time, it is good enough to be sold for decades; and to be sold all over the world, in different climates and in different cultures.

“But it is not only good for our customers to have such an aircraft – most of all it is a benefit for us, because it offers long-term sustainability to the manufacturer and it secures stability to the work positions for our employees. I am extremely proud of the company’s collective. I would like to congratulate my workers for producing such high-quality aircraft which have been the jewel in the crown of Pipistrel all these years. I would also like to thank all the customers worldwide who believed in our products. Your trust has been our best promotion all these years.”

The team has another reason to be proud. This year Pipistrel celebrates 30 years of organized aircraft production as a company. During these years they have produced aircraft from the Sinus/Virus family, as well as all the other models; Taurus and Taurus Electro; Type-certified SW 121; the line of aircraft for Indian Army; Garud; Apis Bee; Panthera; and powered motor-gliders in the early years) the total sum of Pipistrel aircraft produced is now probably already over 2000.

(Image provided with Pipistrel news release)

FMI: www.pipistrel-usa.com