At one end of the runway, a small white airplane with “N219” printed on its fuselage was ready to take off. Precisely at 9:13 a.m., the airplane, built collaboratively by PTDI and the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (Lapan), went for it and took flight for the first time.
Applause from the crowd was thunderous. Many of the employees shouted in joy with tears in their eyes. Some, overwhelmed by emotion, hugged one another or prostrated on the ground in sheer gratitude.
The small airplane, designed to reach remote regions in Papua, the idea for which was first proposed in 2006, was finally flying. Some 30 minutes later, the airplane landed. Thunderous applause was again heard.
After the N219 came to a stop in front of the hangar, the crowd swarmed around it to greet and cheer the crew that had flown the airplane. Among the crew members was PTDI head test pilot Esther Gayatri Saleh, who served as the pilot in command for the N219’s maiden flight.
“The airplane performed well. It responded exactly as expected,” said Esther, with an emergency parachute still on her back. Even in her pride for N219’s successful maiden flight, there was tension etched on her face.
Other crew members of the flight included first officer Capt. Adi Budi Atmoko and two flight test engineers Yustinus Wardana and M Iqbal Hoedaya.
Lengthy process
Amid the fledgling national research and innovation culture, limited funds and widespread pessimism regarding the ability of engineers in the national aviation industry, the N219 had a successful first flight. This is only the second time in Indonesian history that a product of national aviation engineers has taken flight successfully.
The first was, of course, the N250 airplane, which had its maiden flight on Aug. 10, 1995. The atmosphere of the two maiden flights were in stark contrast to each other. At the N250 maiden flight, there was a huge ceremony attended by President Soeharto. Employees of PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara (IPTN), PTDI’s former name, could only witness the ceremony from afar.
However, development of the N250, which was relatively sophisticated for its era and involved a number of foreign experts, ceased when Indonesia was hit by the 1998 financial crisis. The crisis forced the restructuring of PTDI and the dismissal of 12,000 of its employees.
In those dark days, as PTDI was at its lowest point in 2007, a number of its engineers who were still with the company designed an aircraft deemed most appropriate to fulfill needs in the nation’s most remote regions. “PTDI wanted to boost the spirit of its engineers at a time when they virtually had no jobs here,” PTDI president director Budi Santoso said.
The project was also aimed at transferring senior engineers’ knowledge to their juniors in order to pass down aviation engineering skills and knowledge from the experts involved in creating the N250. “Now, half of PTDI’s 4,400 employees are above 55 years old. The rest are 26 years old or younger,” PTDI technical assistant on aircraft development Andi Alisjahbana, previously PTDI director of technology, said.
The aircraft started being designed in 2014 and several parts were produced in 2015. Different from the N250\'s development, in which all of the processes were done by PTDI, research and development for the N219 were done by Lapan. The involvement of a state agency in funding the N219 was a strategy to make the aircraft’s selling price more competitive.
In tandem with component production, the Transportation Ministry’s airworthiness and aircraft operation directorate processed the N219’s certification. As the plane was prioritized for domestic use, domestic certification was deemed enough for the N219. Based on experience in seeking foreign certification for the N250, certification poses a huge challenge as it is not free from political interests.
Furthermore, Indonesia uses the same certification criteria as that of US or European certification agencies, namely the criteria set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). As the N219 has fewer than 20 seats, the Civil Aviation Safety Regulation (CASR) Part 23 is used as certification guidelines.
“Domestic certification of the N219 will also boost the profile of Indonesian certifiers. Not all countries have this,” Transportation Ministry director general of air transportation Agus Santoso said.
Despite being done locally, the certification process is strict. This is among the reasons the aircraft’s maiden flight was delayed several times since January 2016.
PT DI N219 program head Budi Sampurno said that during the aircraft component integration, 500 components and 200 assembly units needed to be readjusted and reviewed.
After a delay of 1.5 years, the N219 finally took flight. However, this is not the end of the certification and challenges of the N219. Two other N219 prototypes still need to undergo test flights of up to 300 hours and two other prototypes need to undergo 3,000 fatigue tests with loads on take-off, in-flight and during landing.
Once all the tests are successfully conducted, the aim is to commercially produce the N219 in 2018 and to market the planes in 2019. Political pressure from the global aircraft industry and other countries may persist, even if there are now fewer aircraft manufacturers producing small planes. However, the conviction among policymakers in Indonesia will be far more important. Without their support, the innovation of Indonesian experts and engineers will be nothing more than a fanciful bedtime story.
“Other countries are not worried about Indonesian scientific publications and patents, no matter how many they are. However, they will be afraid if our government is committed to using our own products and innovation,” National Research Council head Bambang Setiadi said recently.
(SEM/YUN/MZW)
