Farnborough 2012: Indra preps MRI aircraft for Seaspray radar tests

Spanish technology company Indra will begin demonstrating its new twin-engine MRI (Multisensor Reconnaissance and Identification) light maritime aircraft to potential customers in September.

Currently on display at Farnborough Airshow in the UK, the MRI aircraft is scheduled to fly to Edinburgh in the third week of July for flight trials with its Selex Galileo Seaspray 5000E lightweight surveillance radar.

Testing should be concluded by late August and Indra intends to unveil the complete MRI offering - which is based on Italian manufacturer Tecnam's P2006T four-seat utility very light aircraft (VLA) - to potential customers in Madrid the following month, according to Tecnam's MRI sales manager, Alejandro Martínez Recasens.

The MRI package has been developed by Indra as a low-cost maritime surveillance aircraft for operations extending from the coastline to 150 n miles offshore. "At this stage everything is pretty much integrated. As far as the application and software [are concerned] we are pretty much 85 per cent done," Martínez Recasens told IHS Jane's .