The ENAER ECH-02 Ñamcú was a single-engine, two-seat,

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

, designed and built by the Chilean manufacturer ENAER. A first prototype flew in 1989, and while the joint venture company Euro-ENAER was set up to build the aircraft in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

as the Euro-Enaer Eaglet, these plans failed when Euro-ENAER went bankrupt in 2002.

Design and development

The

Chilean Air Force The Chilean Air Force () is the air force of Chile and branch of the Chilean military. History The first step towards the current FACh is taken by Lieutenant Colonel, Teniente Coronel training as a pilot in France. Although a local academy was c ...

established an aircraft manufacturing arm, IndAer, in 1980, which began by assembling Piper PA-28 Dakotas and building the ENAER T-35 Pillán military light trainer, which was developed by Piper for manufacture in Chile. IndAer became ENAER (Empresa Nacional de Aeronáutica de Chile), a separate state-owned company, in 1984. In 1986, ENAER began work on its first entirely indigenous aircraft, a two-seat, single-engined light aircraft suitable for use by

flying club A flying club or aero club is a non-profit organization, not-for-profit, member-run organization that provides its members with affordable access to aircraft. Many clubs also provide flight training, flight planning facilities, pilot supplies and ...

s as a

training aircraft A trainer is a class of aircraft designed specifically to facilitate flight training of pilots and aircrews. The use of a dedicated trainer aircraft with additional safety features—such as tandem flight controls, forgiving flight characteristic ...

. As such, the project (at first known as the ''Avion Livano'' (light aircraft)), was to be inexpensive, with a price of

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

70,000 claimed in 1991. The Ñamcú was a low-wing

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

with a fixed nosewheel undercarriage. It was of all-

composite Composite or compositing may refer to: Materials * Composite material, a material that is made from several different substances ** Metal matrix composite, composed of metal and other parts ** Cermet, a composite of ceramic and metallic material ...

construction, with most of the structure made of

glassfibre Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...

and

polyurethane Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) is a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethane term ...

sandwich material, while the

wing spar In a fixed-wing aircraft, the spar is often the main structural member of the wing, running spanwise at right angles (or thereabouts depending on wing sweep) to the fuselage. The spar carries flight loads and the weight of the wings while on ...

s were made of a mixture of glassfibre and

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers ( Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon comp ...

. The crew of two sat side by side in a fully enclosed cockpit, with

gull-wing door In the automotive industry, a gull-wing door, also known as a falcon-wing door, McLaren anhedral door, or an up-door, is a car door that is hinged at the roof rather than the side, as pioneered by Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, first as a race car in ...

s. A Textron Lycoming O-235-N2C

flat-four A flat-four engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-four engine or boxer 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 box ...

piston engine drove a two-bladed fixed-pitch propeller. The first prototype made its maiden flight in April 1989, with three more prototypes following, one of which crashed on 11 February 1992 following a

bird strike A bird strike (sometimes called birdstrike, bird ingestion (for an engine), bird hit, or bird aircraft strike hazard (BASH)) is a collision between an airborne animal (usually a bird or bat) and a moving vehicle (usually an aircraft). The term ...

, killing the pilot. After attempts to interest the Chilean Air Force in the Ñamcú failed, ENAER set up Euro-ENAER, a joint venture with the

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

and Dutch investors, to

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the aircraft as airworthy in the Netherlands under European regulations, with ENAER hoping to sell 50 aircraft per year, at a price which had now increased to US$100,000 an aircraft. By 1998, it was planned to assemble a modified version of the aircraft, powered by a Textron Lycoming O-320-D2A engine, in a new factory in the Netherlands. Certification of the Eaglet was expected by late that year, with the aircraft having a price of $120,000. In early 1999, Euro-ENAER was blaming poor weather and difficulties with the

Joint Aviation Authorities The Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) was an associated body of the European Civil Aviation Conference representing the civil aviation regulatory authorities of a number of European States who had agreed to co-operate in developing and implementi ...

for delays in certification for the Eaglet, whose unit price had now reached US$160,000, although the company was now forecasting annual sales of 50 per year in Europe and 200 a year in America. Euro-ENAER finally managed to certify the Eaglet in 2001, but the company announced it needed additional funding to start production. These efforts failed, however, and Euro-ENAER was declared bankrupt later that year.

Specifications (Ñamcú)

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{ENAER aircraft Ñamcú 1980s Chilean aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1989