Lufthansa increases Diamond DA42-VI training fleet at Rostock Airport

Lufthansa Aviation Training (LAT) has welcomed two new Diamond DA42-VI aircraft to complement its flight training fleet at Rostock-Laage.

LAT experts ferried the two Austrian-manufactured training aircraft from Wiener Neustadt to Rostock-Laage – increasing the Diamond DA42-VI fleet to seven.

The two new aircraft have Lufthansa and SWISS  liveries. The crew of Lufthansa CityLine flight LH2761 greeted them upon arrival at Rostock-Laage airport.

European Flight Academy student pilots in Bremen, Rostock-Laage, Grenchen (Switzerland) and Goodyear (Arizona) train with 57 LAT-owned training aircraft in total. Additionally, they have a pool of 50 training aircraft at their disposal at the partner pilot school, Flight Safety Academy, in Vero Beach (Florida).

Diamond DA42

The DA42’s are ideal for instrument rating training on multi-engine aircraft. The piston twins are equipped with a weather-radar and an iPad-interface to the aircraft’s avionics. It also has a de-icing system that allows training flights into moderate known icing conditions. The two 168 horsepower AUSTRO jet-fuel-engines AE300 make the aircraft very quiet. It also means it consumes around a third less fuel while performing a 50 percent higher rate of climb in case of a simulated engine failure.

Matthias Lehman, Managing Director of LAT Pilot Academy, which also includes the Rostock-Laage training site, ferried one of the planes. He was delighted with the new additions. “It is very important for us to prepare our cadets as good as possible for the challenges in their pilot profession," he said.

"For that matter, exercising on modern training aircraft plays an important role. Also, the upgrade of Rostock-Laage’s fleet is a commitment to the location, where, due to a well-developed infrastructure and high density of surrounding airfields with various approach procedures, ideal training conditions exist."

The additions follow the arrival, last year, of five new state-of-the-art DA42-VI aircraft. They replaced the ten-year-old Piper PA-44.

"We are proud of our long-standing relationship with Lufthansa Aviation Training," said Amila Spiegel, Sales & Marketing Director at Diamond. “The DA42-VI is currently the most modern and safest aircraft for multi-engine flight training on the market."

The DA42s have outsold all other certified piston twins combined since its introduction more than 14 years ago.

Image credit: Diamond Aircraft