Pipistrel


Pipistrel d.o.o Ajdovščina is a Slovenian light aircraft manufacturer established in 1989 by Ivo Boscarol and based in Ajdovščina. Its facilities are located in Ajdovščina, Slovenia and near the town of Gorizia, Italy. By March 2019, Pipistrel had produced more than 2000 aircraft.

History

Due to legal restrictions imposed by the Yugoslavian government during the 1980s, the first aircraft was flown secretly in the evening, between dusk and dark. The flying times and triangular shape of the hang-glider style wings earned the aircraft the nickname "bats" which was adopted by the company naming themselves after the Italian word for bat, :wikt:it:pipistrello|pipistrello.
Initially Pipistrel produced only powered hang gliders, designed by Ivo Boscarol, who produced experimental ultralight trikes with a group of his friends as a private enterprise starting in the mid-1980s. The first serially-built ultralight trike, the Basic, was built in 1989, so the company counts this as the official beginning of Pipistrel, although the first mention of the brand name appeared in 1987. Thirty-two examples of the Basic were sold. The Plus was added to the line in 1990, the Spider in 1992 and Twister in 1998. The Spider was marketed in Europe in the early 2000s by Flight Team UG & Company AG of Ippesheim, Germany. During the company's first ten years in operation, the trike models were exported to more than 30 countries in Europe and Africa, with almost 600 units were produced. The production of trikes was discontinued in the early 2000s.
In 1992 the company was officially registered as Pipistrel d.o.o. on 18 November 1992, with Vida Lorbek as the first manager.
In the mid-1990s, when composite materials became more widely used, the company moved from the production of powered hang-gliders to ultralight aircraft that resemble full-sized airplanes. One of the early models, the Sinus, was the first serially-built ultralight made out of composite materials.
In 2003 company moved into purpose built facility next to the Ajdovščina Airport.
In 2004 Pipistrel released the world's first side-by-side 2-seat self-launching glider, the Pipistrel Taurus.
In the years 2007 and 2008 Pipistrel claimed two consecutive victories at NASA Centennial Challenges. In 2007 Personal Air Vehicle challenge, the modified aircraft Pipistrel Virus, owned by Vance Turner and piloted by Pipistrel's general distributor for USA Michael Coates, won most of the categories. In 2008 similar results were achieved by the team at "General Aviation Technology" challenge.
In August 2012, Pipistrel was hit by a brief week-long import ban issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. Pipistrel had opened a factory in Italy to benefit from the country's bilateral agreements with the United States. During a routine check, the FAA was unable to locate Pipistrel's Italian factory on Google Earth and banned the import of some of Pipistrel's products.
On 12 October 2015 Pipistrel won an international tender issued by the Indian Ministry of Defence, to supply 194 Pipistrel Virus SW 80 trainers to the Indian Air Force, Indian Navy and National Cadet Corps.
By June 2016, Pipistrel had produced 800 examples from the Sinus and Virus series. By May 2018 this number had increased to more than 900. The 1000th aircraft of the Virus and Sinus family was delivered by March 2019.

Electric aircraft

In 2007 an electric version of the Taurus was released, the world’s first fully electric 2-seat aircraft and the first electric motor-glider to achieve serial production. In 2008 Popular Science magazine listed Taurus Electro among Ten Best Innovations of the year in the Aviation&Space category.
The Taurus G4, developed in 2011 was the first all-electric four-seat aircraft. It used the most powerful electric motor in an all-electric airplane design at that time.
in California
In July 2015, Siemens, provider of the Dynadyn motor used in the Alpha Electro trainer, warned Pipistrel that it should not use its motors for overwater flights, just as Pipistrel was about to launch a historic electric-powered flight across the English Channel and back. As it turns out, Airbus was preparing exactly the same Louis Blériot-like exploit, with a plane powered by a motor also provided by Siemens, and it was speculated that Siemens was pressured by Airbus.
In February 2016, Pipistrel ran the most powerful hybrid electric powertrain in aviation to date, as a part of the project HYPSTAIR. The EU funded the Hypstair program: a Pipistrel Panthera mockup received a serial hybrid-electric powertrain, ground testing a motor driven by batteries only, by a generator-only and by both combined. The Hypstair program is followed by Mahepa project from 2017, EU-funded over four years. Panthera ground testing is planned for 2019 before flight tests in 2020.
On 29 September 2016 the world’s first four-seat passenger aircraft powered by a zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system accomplished a successful first public flight. Pipistrel was one of the partners in the "HY4" project. The dual-fuselage, battery-powered Taurus G4 received a DLR hydrogen fuel cell powertrain to fly as the HY4, with hydrogen tanks and batteries in the fuselages, fuel cells and motor in the central nacelle. Partners are German motor and inverter developer Compact Dynamics, Ulm University, TU Delft, Politecnico di Milano and University of Maribor. Ground and flight tests should follow those of the hybrid Panthera a couple of months later.
In June 2019 the company had formed a new R&D sister company, "Pipistrel Vertical Solutions" to develop the Pipistrel 801 electric VTOL aircraft.
On 10 June 2020, the Pipistrel Velis Electro, the fully-electric version of the Virus SW 121, received the World's first type certificate for an electric aircraft from EASA.

Aircraft

Gliders and light aircraft