Oaxaca Aerospace has unveiled the first military plane to be designed and built in Mexico.
The Pegasus P-400T is a lightweight reconnaissance and attack plane—and, according to the company, is an entirely original design. The design was created using cutting-edge design software produced in-house.
The plane can reach a cruising speed of 280mph and a top speed of over 340mph, powered by its 400hp turbocharged engine. It has a range of 1,400 miles with a five-hour flight capacity.
Oaxaca claims that the P-400T is also less expensive and more efficient than comparable aircraft. It will cost $3 million, while the competition’s aircraft can cost up to $11 million. And the plane only uses 57 liters of fuel an hour compared to similar aircraft that can guzzle as much as 189 liters an hour.
The back seat of the aircraft is slightly elevated behind the front seat, improving visibility, and the craft can be piloted from either seat. Cockpit visibility is 300 degrees vertical and 240 degrees horizontal.
The aircraft, which is ideally suited for maritime patrols and recon missions, can engage in agile evasive maneuvers that also make it suitable for light attack missions. That agility is helped in part by a wing with a canard that makes the plane capable of greater lift at lower speeds—a design facilitated by funding from the Mexican government’s agency for science and technology. It can fly at night and features a rear propeller that can kick in should a mechanical failure occur.
Mexico used to manufacture planes in the 1960s but they were copies of aircraft models like the Cessna. Oaxaca intends not merely to restart Mexican aircraft manufacturing—but to usher in a new generation of home-grown, Mexican-designed and -produced airplanes.
“Most aircraft now in use follow designs that date back to the mid-1950s, modified only in areas like avionics and more modern engines, but they have not been radically modified to make them more efficient and aerodynamic,” said Rodrigo Fernandez, general manager at Oaxaca Aerospace, adding that the company’s objective was to create “an innovative aircraft, completely different from what already existed, and with modern engineering, using software and advanced tools.”
The company intends to begin manufacturing the aircraft by 2022, focusing sales on developing countries—and putting Mexico on the map as an aircraft manufacturer
Read more about developments in light aircraft at How the World’s First Solid State Aircraft Achieves Propulsion with No Moving Parts.