Press Release

Issued by DEA.

January 16, 2013

Friday 7th December, 2012 saw the signature and confirmation of order by DEA (Diamond-Executive Aviation) for its 3rd DA42 MPP NG (Multi Purpose Platform).

The new aircraft (G-PEEK) will support DEA's current MPPs G-DMPP and G-DSPY in an ever widening series of operations for DEA's existing partners and will also act as the lead aircraft for the proof of concept and deployment of a new DEA partner to be operational in February 2013.

The new MPP is a DA42M NG low conspicuity version, that is, is painted in low reflectivity paint, has a low infra red signature design and special over the wing silencers to reduce noise and heat signatures further.

As with all of DEA's DA42MPPs, the aircraft is intended to be multi-role, that is, being able to be re-rolled to support different DEA partner's requests as required. However this MPP, initially, will be adapted to provide an ultra high resolution surveying capability for one of DEA's new partners that will be announced early in 2013.

The aircraft will be officially handed over completed with its new mission equipment integrated in February 2013, at which time it will start initial evaluation trials with DEA's new partner.

"DEA is one of our leading customers in Europe who really follows the idea of our "Multi Purpose Platform" concept. It is good to monitor that even in very hard times DEA has always the vision and cleverness to develop a new business. It looks like fortune that the most efficient and environmental friendly airplane will provide missions to protect different future environmental programs. We are strongly looking forwad to deliver the first DA42MPP NG to DEA, ready to operate about 1,000hours a year.", says Markus Fischer, diriector sales from Diamond Airborne Sensing GmbH.

The aircraft has been earmarked to support DEA's bid for a proposed European Space Agency (ESA) program to address the needs for a low cost, rapid response solution to the needs for airborne situational awareness and command control capabilities in the event of man made or natural disasters.

The aircraft, assuming the project is endorsed, would be the proof of concept platform. DAS previously worked on the pilot phase of this program, SASISA.