“PLANA Signs MOU with M.I Air for Pilot Training and Simulators”

South Kore­an hybrid-pow­ered eVTOL devel­op­er, PLANA, announced this week it has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with M.I Air, a U.S com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in pilot train­ing for small or com­mer­cial air­craft, reports a press release.

PLANA also signed a Let­ter of Intent (LOI) to sup­ply ful­ly inte­grat­ed flight sim­u­la­tors to M.I Air by 2026.  In return, the Amer­i­can firm aims to pri­ori­tise the intro­duc­tion of the eVTOL com­pa­ny’s sev­en air­craft by 2030 via oper­at­ing a pro­fes­sion­al pilot train­ing course spe­cial­is­ing in AAM. 

The release explains, “While PLANA has attract­ed around USD700 mil­lion poten­tial sales for its eVTOL air­craft from coun­tries like Japan, South Korea and the Unit­ed States, this pilot train­ing agree­ment will be a dri­ving force towards gain­ing Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, lead­ing to com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.”

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Braden J. Kim, CEO of PLANA, com­ment­ed, “To ensure the com­pet­i­tive­ness of our hybrid air­craft dur­ing com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion, we must cer­ti­fy the ‘Sim­pli­fied Vehi­cle Oper­a­tions (SVO)’ sys­tem and sin­gle-pilot oper­a­tions.” He added, “By col­lab­o­rat­ing with M.I. Air from the devel­op­ment stage, we will cre­ate a sys­tem that not only reflects design per­spec­tives, but also the needs of poten­tial pilots.” 

Kim is to vis­it M.I. Air’s facil­i­ty next month to assess the tech­ni­cal aspects of pilot train­ing and refine the cock­pit design, con­trol, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems accord­ing­ly, with sim­u­la­tors being the first to be deliv­ered.

Sebas­t­ian Han, Chair­man of M.I Air, remarked, “We are thrilled to utilise PLANA’s air­craft to devel­op pilot pro­to­cols that will be key to expand­ing the AAM mar­ket.” He con­tin­ued, “Hybrid air­craft, which are com­pat­i­ble with exist­ing reg­u­la­tions and infra­struc­ture, are the most real­is­tic solu­tion for replac­ing busi­ness jets and heli­copters. We will active­ly sup­port PLANA’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion path from an oper­a­tional stand­point.”

The com­pa­ny is a FAA-approved flight school oper­at­ing both Part 141 and Part 61 cours­es, offer­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tions such as pri­vate and com­mer­cial pilot licens­es, instru­ment flight rules (IFR) edu­ca­tion, etc.. It is also autho­rised by the U.S Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty to accept inter­na­tion­al stu­dents. 

The release con­tin­ues, “PLANA is devel­op­ing an air­craft capa­ble of reduc­ing car­bon diox­ide emis­sions by over 90 per­cent com­pared to heli­copters, fly­ing at an afford­able range of 500 kms at 350 km/h with a sin­gle pilot and six pas­sen­gers on board. The com­pa­ny has already sold a reduced pro­to­type and has estab­lished offices in Delaware and Los Ange­les as of March 2023, to col­lab­o­rate with the FAA on cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and expand its glob­al ecosys­tem.”

PLANA’s hybrid elec­tric-pow­ered CP-01 eVTOL Air­craft

For more infor­ma­tion

https://plana.aero/

https://www.miairservices.com

(Top image: PLANA)

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