The Alpi Pioneer 400 is an Italian four-seat

light aircraft A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a maximum gross takeoff weight of or less.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 308. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. Light aircraft are used as utility aircraft c ...

, designed produced by

Alpi Aviation Alpi Aviation srl ( en, italic=yes, Alps Aviation Limited) is an Italian aircraft manufacturer based in Pordenone. The company specializes in the design and manufacture of light aircraft in the form of kits for Homebuilt aircraft, amateur con ...

, of

Pordenone Pordenone (; Venetian and fur, Pordenon) is the main ''comune'' of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. The name comes from Latin ''Portus Naonis'', meaning 'port on the Noncello (Latin ''Naon'') River'. ...

. The aircraft is supplied as a kit for amateur construction or as a complete ready-to-fly-aircraft.

Design

The Alpi Pioneer series of light aircraft,

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300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 (Roman numerals, CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, ...

and 400 are developments of the

Vidor Champion V The Vidor Champion V is an Italian homebuilt aircraft that was designed by Giuseppe Vidor, first flying on 10 June 1995. The aircraft is supplied in the form of plans for amateur construction.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourc ...

or Asso V, designed by

Giuseppe Vidor Asso Aerei Srl ( en, Ace Aircraft Limited) is an Italian designer of light and ultralight aircraft founded by Giuseppe (Bepi) Vidor. Vidor (died 23 September 2013 aged 72) was a carpenter who studied engineering at night school, and all his aircraf ...

and renamed Gamma Pioneer, of which, the Gamma Pioneer 400 is the largest seating four. ''Quattrocento'' (four hundred) is often included in the name. The Pioneer 400 is a low wing monoplane, with a trapezoidal plan wing that has sweep only on the trailing edge and winglets at its tips. The wing structure is wooden with a single box-spar and is covered with pre-preg carbon fibre. Ailerons occupy about half the span; inboard, slotted flaps fill the rest. Both ailerons and flaps are fabric covered. The fuselage and empennage have a wooden structure and carbon fibre skin. The engine used is the 73.5 kW (98.6 hp)

Rotax 912S The Rotax 912 is a horizontally-opposed four-cylinder, naturally aspirated, four-stroke aircraft engine with a reduction gearbox. It features liquid-cooled cylinder heads and air-cooled cylinders. Originally equipped with carburetors, later ...

flat-four, driving a

variable pitch propeller In marine propulsion, a variable-pitch propeller is a type of propeller with blades that can be rotated around their long axis to change the blade pitch. Reversible propellers—those where the pitch can be set to negative values—can also ...

. The cabin is over the wings, with two pairs of side-by-side seats. Entry is by two upward-opening doors and there is a baggage space behind the rear seats. At the rear the vertical surfaces are straight-edged and swept, with a long dorsal strake. The horizontal surfaces are approximately trapezoidal in plan, with an unswept leading edge. Both the rudder and elevators are fabric covered. The rudder is balanced and both it and the port elevator carry trim tabs. The Pioneer has retractable tricycle landing gear though the nose-wheel remains partially exposed when retracted. An emergency ballistic parachute is an option.

Development

The date of the first flight of the Pioneer 400 is not known but it first appeared in public at the 2009

Friedrichshafen Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''Kre ...

airshow held 2–5 April. Though briefly registered in Italy, by 11 June 2009 the first prototype had been re-registered in the UK as ''G-CGAJ''. It received type approval in late 2010 and full approval in August 2012. Three distinct variants, each available as a kit or a flyaway aircraft, have been marketed. The Ultralight has a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of to fulfil the European Ultralight limit. Another variant, designated Experimental has an empty weight increased by and an MTOW of . The Pioneer 400T has the same MTOW as the Experimental but is powered by a

turbo-charged In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

Rotax 914 The Rotax 914 is a turbo-charged, four-stroke, four-cylinder, horizontally opposed aircraft engine with air-cooled cylinders and water-cooled cylinder heads. It is designed and built by the Austrian company BRP-Powertrain, owned by Bombardier R ...

flat-four A flat-four engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-four engine, is a four-cylinder piston engine with two banks of cylinders lying on opposite sides of a common crankshaft. The most common type of flat-four engine is the boxer-four engine, ...

which raises the cruising speed to . Nineteen Gamma Pioneer 400s had been built by November 2014.

Variants

; Gamma Pioneer Ultralight: MTOW to Euro UL limit. ; Gamma Pioneer Experimental: MTOW to Euro Experimental limit. ; Gamma Pioneer 400T: same as the Experimental, but with an uprated

engine.

Specification (400 Ultralight)

References

External links

* {{Alpi Aviation aircraft 2000s Italian ultralight aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Light-sport aircraft Alpi Aviation aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft