__NOTOC__ The Aquila A 210 is a two-seat

reinforced plastic Fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP; also called fibre-reinforced polymer, or in American English ''fiber'') is a composite material made of a polymer matrix reinforced with fibres. The fibres are usually glass (in fibreglass), carbon (in carbon-fib ...

light aircraft produced in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

from 2002. It remains in production in 2022 as the updated A211.

Design and development

The marketing name A 210 is usually used to refer to Aquila's light side by side two seat aircraft, though its official engineering and certification name is Aquila AT01. Design work started in 1997 and the first flight was made in March 2000. The A 210 is entirely built from carbon and glass fibre reinforced plastics ( CFRP and GFRP). CRFP is used for the more highly stressed members, spars, frames and stringers, GFRP for shells and control surfaces, the latter with GFRP/polyurethane sandwich construction. The

low wing 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 config ...

has straight tapered inboard sections with increasing sweep outboard and winglets at the tips on production examples. It has a

laminar flow Laminar flow () is the property of fluid particles in fluid dynamics to follow smooth paths in layers, with each layer moving smoothly past the adjacent layers with little or no mixing. At low velocities, the fluid tends to flow without lateral m ...

section and 4.5° of dihedral. The

aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement aroun ...

s are balanced and the inboard single slotted Fowler flaps have two positions. The A 210 is powered by a

Rotax 912 The Rotax 912 is a horizontally-opposed four-cylinder, naturally-aspirated, four-stroke aircraft engine with a reduction gearbox. It features liquid-cooled cylinder heads and air-cooled cylinders. Originally equipped with carburetors, la ...

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 ...

engine driving a two blade

propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

. The cabin has uninterrupted transparencies fore and aft, with a slender fuselage behind. The canopy is forward hinged. The

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabilizer, is a small lift (force), lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters ...

is set just above the fuselage and the

fin A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. F ...

is swept. A small

ventral Standard anatomical terms of location are used to describe unambiguously the anatomy of humans and other animals. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...

fin doubles as a tail bumper. The A 210 has a fixed

tricycle undercarriage Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', that is arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has one or more nose wheels in a single front undercarriage and two or more main wheels slightly aft of th ...

. Its mainwheels are fitted with hydraulic brakes and mounted on spring steel legs from the fuselage. The nosewheel has rubber suspension and is steerable; speed fairings are fitted on all wheels.

Operational history

German certification was achieved in 2001 and deliveries began the following year. It gained US certification in 2003. Early sales were to clubs, mostly as training aircraft. Most have been sold in Europe and overall 120 have been built by late 2010. 110 appear as Aquila AT01 on the civil aircraft registrations of European countries excluding Russia in 2010. After the acquisition of the company by a Turkish investor, one plane was gifted to

Gendarmerie General Command The Gendarmerie General Command () is the national gendarmerie force of the Republic of Turkey. It is a service branch of the Turkish Ministry of Interior responsible for the maintenance of the public order in areas that fall outside the jurisdi ...

Variants

;Aquila A 210 :Original model ; Aquila A 211 :Conventional instrument panel ;Aquila A 211GX :Glass cockpit model

Specifications

References

External links

{{commons category, Aquila A 210
European Aviation Safety Agency Type Certificate Data Sheet for the AQUILA AT01
2000s German sport aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 2000