Three years ago during AVweb’s Aero coverage, we reported on a new four-place training aircraft from the Italian company Vulcanair. This week at AirVenture, the company showed the airplane in the U.S. for the first time. The Vulcanair 1.0 looks a lot like a Cessna Skyhawk because it’s intended for the same market: training.
But Vulcanair is aiming to be aggressively price competitive in setting the stick price at $259,000 complete, with a Garmin G500 IR suit. The engine is Lycoming’s 180-HP IO-360 equipped with a constant speed prop, so Vulcanair claims it’s a bit faster than the Skyhawk in cruise and climbs better, too.
Max takeoff is 2446 pounds with a useful load of 882 pounds, according to Vulcanair’s Remo Defeo, who we interviewed for this AVweb video this week during AirVenture. The 1.0 is already certified and selling in Europe and is expected to receive U.S. approval by the end of 2017.
