The TL-5000 Sparker ultralight aircraft made it to the Gold Medal of the International Engineering Fair in Brno. The aircraft was lent to the exhibition by the Hradec Králové company TL-ULTRALIGHT, which cooperated on the development of the aircraft with experts from the Institute of Aerospace Engineering of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology.

Undoubtedly, the most striking exhibit at this year's BUT stand is the blue and white ultralight aircraft. Specifically, it is the Sparker plane made by the domestic manufacturer TL-ULTRALIGHT. Experts from the Institute of Aerospace Engineering of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology took part in the development of this aircraft. "We covered the vast majority of the computational part, all theoretical backgrounds, analyses and performance predictions. Our task was also to carry out all the load tests that are needed for the certification of the aircraft. These took place in our aircraft testing laboratory, which is fully certified for this type of tests," says Ivo Jebáček, head of the aircraft testing laboratory, who received the Gold Medal of the International Engineering Fair for the aircraft at a gala evening on Tuesday 10 October.

For the Institute of Aerospace Engineering and TL-ULTRALIGHT, it was a continuation of many years of cooperation in the field of development and research of the state-of-the-art aircrafts. An example is the Stream Turbo aircraft powered by a high-performance turboprop propulsion unit from Velká Bíteš, which gives the aircraft absolutely exceptional flight performance while maintaining a high degree of safety.

The development of this new aircraft was not only an opportunity for scientists, but also for students. "We always try to involve our students in similar projects. For example, in a course called "Aircraft Testing", our students were able to design a horizontal stabilizer test. This included the definition of the sections in which the structure would be loaded and then they carried out the test themselves, of course under the supervision of an expert from the ranks of teachers," adds Jebáček.

The Sparker aircraft on display is one of the first planes in the Czech Republic to be specifically designed to meet the new regulations of the category, which increased the take-off weight of ultralight aircraft from the previous 450 kilograms to 600 kilograms. As a result, an aircraft with a high degree of equipment, variability and comfort of long-distance travel was created. The aircraft is already on sale, the company has so far sold around ten units to customers from Europe and the USA.

"With the Sparker aircraft, the company acquires a highly competitive product that combines high performance, suitable flight characteristics, ergonomically optimized cockpit, implementation of the latest avionics and, last but not least, favorable operating costs," says Jiří Tlustý, CEO of TL-ULTRALIGHT, adding that a large number of innovative solutions applied from the initial design to serial production have enabled the company to create a product that surpasses its rival products in terms of performance and utility properties and defines the form of the new generation of aircraft in the category. "We greatly appreciate our long-term cooperation with experts from the Institute of Aerospace Engineering, thanks to whom we managed to implement new advanced technologies and materials in the project and thanks to which the demanding process of development and certification verification of the Sparker aircraft was carried out and even accelerated," concludes Tlustý.