Following the delivery of six Diamond DA40CS single engine aircraft in March, the DA42 L360 was the last of the seven Diamonds on order by UNSW Aviation. Powered by the new counter-rotating Lycoming IO-360 180hp engine, this is the first of the highly anticipated avgas powered Diamond Twins to operate in Australia.
The aircraft will be based at the UNSW Aviation Flying Operations Unit at Bankstown Airport.
“These aircraft will provide UNSW Aviation with one of the most modern and well equipped training fleets in the region,” Hawker Pacific’s Senior Vice President, Aircraft Sales and Flight Services Group, Tony Jones, said. “They are economical to maintain and offer a high level of safety and performance.”
The modern Diamond aircraft range is well equipped with leading edge technology and offers a high level of economy, safety and performance at an affordable price. The Diamonds provide important synergies for flying school operators in terms of cockpit layout and handling characteristics between single and twin-engine aircraft. These benefits provide a better quality of training and ease of progress for trainees to more advanced aircraft.
As an example, the DA42 L360 Lycoming powered twin offers a proven airframe, world-leading avionics and is a superbly capable training or General Aviation aircraft. Its spacious interior, larger panoramic canopy, industry leading Garmin G1000 glass flight deck, cockpit similarity to most popular new singles, and compact power plant controls are perfect for conventional flight training operations.
The Lycoming IO-360 engine provides the new DA42 L360 twin with a 33 per cent increase in takeoff power over the earlier model DA42 while offering great climb performance and a comfortable cruise speed in excess of 160kts. And testament to the Lycoming IO-360’s durability, to date there has not been a single in-flight shutdown due to technical defect in more than one million combined flight hours on the more than 50,000 engines currently in service.
Read more about the Diamond DA42 L360 here.