The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology in Zaria and Kaduna State will begin assembling Magnus Centennial Aircraft locally with funding of N2.3 billion granted by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Hadi Sirika, the minister of aviation, made this announcement during the FEC meeting on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, which was presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Sirika expressed confidence that the Nigerian aviation sector will soon advance to indigenous aircraft manufacture.
“I am happy to announce today is the reality; we will indeed assemble the Magnus aircraft and will continue to do so and not too distant future by God’s grace, the industry of civil aviation will begin to manufacture right here in the country aircraft.
“But we are beginning by assembling these training aircraft and it will happen very soon.
“So, the memorandum has been passed in council; the manufacturer of the airplane is based in Hungary.
“And the total contract sum is N2.3 billion; the completion period is 18 months.’’
He claimed that although the spin and spin recovery training program had been discontinued by civil aviation for a while, it was now necessary once more. He claims that teaching pupils how to recognize when they are in a spin scenario and how to recover from it before it worsens is the goal of spin and spin recovery.
“We were all trained like that as pilots; but because aeroplanes become more and more technologically advanced, the need for a spin and spin recovery didn’t arise, because they are becoming more and more sophisticated.
“But again, the world realised that we still get into a spin or there is a need for this skill to be developed for recovery out of spin situation.
“So, most of the manufacturers stopped producing trainers for that purpose; and so there are not many people now that do that manufacture.
“And the company, Messrs Magnus, realised that gap and started to produce airplanes that can get into a spin and out of it, so that students can be trained on that.
The minister said that due to the ministry’s maximum attention to safety, it believed that such training should come back to Nigeria’s aviation industry. He said the U.S. which, at some point stopped the training, had gone back to training students on the spin and spin recovery.
“So this airplane is fully aerobatic, goes into aerobatics; and I think the Nigerian Air Force and the Air Force around the region will be interested and excited by this development, we are taking the lead in civil aviation.
“It is our intention to produce them here, assemble them here in policy when in the future, you know, sell them out to where we’re interested around the world.
“So this will happen and I think the first one or two aircraft will happen here in Nigeria and to fly them within the remaining four months that we have as a government.
“So it is another item that is ticked on our plate, and to which we remain grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari and his government,’’ he said.
The updated anticipated total cost and augmentation, contract for the purchase and installation of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) in three airports, and memorandum were all authorized by the FEC, according to Sirika.
The airports include Katsina Airport, Kano International Airport, and Port Harcourt International Airport. # FEC Approves N2.3 Billion for Local Aircraft Assembly.
