Development and Design
The Finnish state-owned manufacturing conglomerate Valmet Oy began design work in September 1970 on a replacement for the Saab Safirs then in use with the Finnish Air Force as basic trainers. Valmet received an order from the Finnish Air Force for further development of the LEKO-70 (Lentokone (Aeroplane) 1970) in March 1973. The first prototype made its maiden flight from Halli Airport for the first time on 1 July 1975.
The aircraft is a low-winged tractor monoplane of all metal construction and with a fixed nosewheel undercarriage. It is powered by a single 200 hp (149 kW) Lycoming O-360 flat-four piston engine driving a two bladed propeller. In its main training role, the pupil and instructor sit side-by-side under a large sliding canopy. An additional two seats or a stretcher and medical attendant can be carried for the liaison role, while the wings are fitted with four hardpoints for carrying of external stores.
The Finnish Air Force placed an order for 30 aircraft, to be designated Vinka (Blast (of wind)) on 28 January 1977, with the aircraft to be built at Valmet's Kuorevesi plant.
Read more about this topic: Valmet L-70 Vinka
Famous quotes containing the words development and/or design:
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)