Paramount's AHRLAC makes its first flight

What is being billed as Africa’s first wholly designed and built military aircraft, the Paramount Group’s Advanced High-Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft (AHRLAC), reached a significant milestone with its maiden flight on 7 August.
The aircraft makes its 'official public' first flight on 13 August.
The initial prototype, or Experimental Demonstrator (XDM), will prove flight characteristics and test the aircraft’s performance. A second prototype under construction, the Advanced Demonstrator (ADM), will be used to test the AHRLAC’s mission and weapon systems, as well as its Martin-Baker Mk 17 ejection seat.
Conceived as an affordable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and light-strike platform to address the lower end of that growing market niche, the tandem twin-seat AHRLAC is powered by a Pratt & Whitney PT6a-66 950 hp pusher turboprop. It is designed to offer a payload with full fuel in excess of 800 kg and provide an endurance of more than 7.5 hours.
Since the launch of the AHRLAC project in September 2011 the Paramount team has spent 315,000 hours on the design and construction of the first prototype. Of the aircraft's 6,000 parts, 98% were designed using sophisticated CATIA software and produced locally by the engineering team.
janes

First flight of South African aircraft AHRLAC to made its maiden flight soon

South African Paramount unveiled a light attack and reconnaissance aircraft called the advanced high-performance reconnaissance light aircraft (AHRLAC) on 10 July in Pretoria.
The twin-boomed, singled-engined AHRLAC – launched nearly three years ago – has completed initial high-speed taxi tests, and first flight is expected “shortly”.
The 3,800kg (8,380lb) type will become the first aircraft designed and built in South Africa since the Denel Rooivalk, an armed helicopter launched during the Apartheid era.
The maiden flight of the experimental demonstrator should be followed within months by an advanced prototype.
Paramount plans to offer the aircraft to the market early next year, with deliveries possible by 2016. AHRLAC is aimed at a developing market among military and paramilitary groups for a low-cost surveillance and attack platform. The South African air force is also monitoring the programme.
flightglobal

AHRLAC: South Africa's first aircraft since apartheid could be platform for revitalised aero industry

South Africa's first domestically-designed aircraft since the ill-fated Denel Rooivalk attack helicopter - conceived during apartheid to fight insurgents, but a subsequent flop in the export market - will take to the air early next year. The AHRLAC, which stands for advanced high-performance reconnaissance light aircraft, is a two-seat, single-engine pusher, and the programme has attracted much market interest throughout the world, according to the company behind it, Paramount. Privately-owned Paramount is not your typical defence firm, and its founder and chairman Ivor Ichikowitz not your typical defence executive. With a background in theatre, Ichikowitz was a supporter of the African National Congress during the apartheid era, and founded Paramount in 1994 when he saw an opportunity to create a "solutions company" to exploit the country's niche expertise in security and defence technology once export markets opened to the rest of Africa. Now one of South Africa's most successful entrepreneurs, his interests include a game resort, mining companies and property. learn more