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craft per year. The same goes for the CN-235 While the development of N-219A has had its own challenges in
as well.” said Silaban. It has been reported in the form of funding shortages, it appears that it is now back on
the Indonesian media that PTDI will continue track with a planned first flight in 2023 or 2024.
upgrading its engineering and manufacturing
capacity for the next three years where, “At the “We're now accelerating the development of the N-219A because
end of this upgrading process we will have the we see there are big demands in our domestic market, especially to
capacity to produce up to twenty aircraft per support tourism in Indonesia,” Silaban said. “We're hope to receive
year. We have also invested in a semi-automatic government certification for the aircraft in 2024 or 2025 and to
manufacturing process with some partners to start its serial production shortly afterward.”
ramp up PTDI's production capacity.” he con-
cluded.
Eyeing Success in the Defense Sector
The Indonesian military (TNI) has embarked on a mission to develop [ INTERVIEW PT DIRGANTARA INDONESIA ]
Challenges And Opportunities its own capability to operate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or
The fate of the N-250 project hasn’t killed drones by acquiring foreign-made ones. After buying and operat-
PTDI’s ambition to design, build and market ing numerous UAVs from the US, Israel, and China over the last
its own aircraft. In 2003, or five years after the decade, TNI decided that the country must also have the capabil-
N-250 project was canceled, the company ity to develop and to build its own UAVs, for use for the country’s
started an initiative to design, manufacture and military and also with an eye on exports.
market the N-219: a 19-seat, twin turboprop
aircraft designed to be able to operate from Elang Hitam (Black Eagle), a 1,300 kg maximum take-off weight
semi-prepared airstrips commonly found in Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV is in development
remote Indonesian regions. However, due to the since 2015 by PTDI in a consortium with the Indonesian National
company’s struggling financial condition until Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Ministry of Defense,
2011, it was not until 2014 when PTDI started Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU), PT LEN and Indonesian Bandung
building the N-219’s first prototype. The aircraft Institute of Technology (ITB). The final phase of the program is to
then successfully performed its first flight on develop the Elang Hitam UAV into an Unmanned Combat Aerial
Aug.16, 2017. Vehicle (UCAV) after 2024. This will be achieved by arming the
drone with weapons that, according to sources, will be acquired
“We do it from zero for this aircraft,” said from Turkey.
Silaban. “We designed, manufactured and
tested, and we got the (Indonesian govern- With the aim to have a performance comparable to Chinese CH-4
ment) certificates in December 2020. We’re UCAV that TNI-AU has been operating for some time, Elang Hitam’s
planning to deliver the first N-219 by the end of first prototype was publicly introduced in 2019. However, not much
2023 or beginning 2024. We're very confident has been revealed afterwards. “We're currently performing ground
about this aircraft and we've talked with a lot of tests for our Elang Hitam MALE UAV, and we've discovered some
interested customers. We're going to enter into issues that we're working on resolving,” said Silaban. “We are in a
the commercial segment with the production consortium with BRIN and several other government bodies and
of this aircraft.”
universities to develop this aircraft. If all goes well, we're aiming to
have the first flight in March or April 2022.”
Realizing the importance of an aircraft that
can also take off and land both on water and Another high-profile defense project that PTDI has been involved
land for an archipelagic country like Indonesia, in since 2010 is the KF-21/IF-X jet fighter with Korean Aerospace
PTDI is developing the N-219 into the N-219A Industries (KAI). After some setbacks due to Indonesia’s delay in
- A for “Amphibious” - by replacing the N-219’s fulfilling its 20% cost-sharing obligation and the COVID-19 pan-
fixed undercarriage with two floats containing demic that saw Indonesian engineers being sent home from South
retractable landing gears inside each of them.
Korea in 2020, the program is back on track with the engineers
already back in South Korea since September last year. “We're
working with KAI and we have 30 of our engineers there to work
with them right now,” confirmed Silaban. “This also means that
we're currently developing our capabilities for our own jet fighter
design and manufacture in the future,“ he added.

While KAI is now preparing KF-21’s first flight in the coming months,
it has been reported that the sixth and final prototype will be sent
to PTDI so the company can start its own development and man-
ufacturing process of the jet fighter. This means that in the near
future, the development of KF-21 and IF-X will likely run separately,
to fit each country’s different operational requirements.

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