Vantrel opens a flight-test site outside Turin

Our new range at Strada del Collino gives the flight-test team space the Zürich car park never could: valleys deep enough to block a link, forest edges for thermal work, and airspace we can close for formation flights.

Why Turin

The site sits between the terrain our customers fly in and the suppliers who build R7’s composite parts. Italian civil aviation authorities granted a standing restricted area up to 400 m, which lets us run three-aircraft formations and link-loss tests every week instead of every quarter.

Aiko Mori, who leads flight test, moved with a team of eight. Four more joined from the region. The hangar holds twelve aircraft, a battery room and a classroom.

Training

From January, customer crews train here. The course runs five days: two in the classroom, three on the range, finishing with a night sortie and a deliberate link cut. Each class has six seats, so every student flies every day.