P is for Pascale

Luigi and Giovanni Pascale flew their first complete aircraft, the P48 Astore, in 1951; it had been built in a small workshop in Naples. In 1957 they founded Partenavia, whose twin-engined P68 became one of Italy’s most exported light aircraft. Every design carried a P, for Pascale. Then, in 1981, the Italian state took control of Partenavia through Aeritalia. The brothers walked away and in 1986 started again from scratch, founding Costruzioni Aeronautiche Tecnam in modest premises in Naples. Its first job was making fuselages for the P68 they had designed themselves.

Tailplanes before aeroplanes

Subcontracting paid the bills: tailplanes for the ATR 42, built to airliner standards with Aeritalia technicians teaching the sealing methods, and fuselage panels for the MD-80, which funded a new plant near Naples Capodichino airport. Then a 1985 Italian law legalised ultralight flying. Under the second generation, led by Paolo Pascale, Tecnam designed the all-metal P92, which first flew at Capua on 14 March 1993. More than 2,500 were in service by 2018, making it the company’s most-built type. Giovanni Pascale died in 1999.

From ultralights to airliners

The P2002 Sierra, the P2008 and the twin P2006T made Tecnam a fixture of flying schools; NASA rebuilt a P2006T as the electric X-57 Maxwell, and the Italian Air Force trains multi-engine pilots on it as the T-2006A. Luigi Pascale’s last design was the 11-seat P2012 Traveller, flown on 21 July 2016 with launch customer Cape Air. He died in March 2017, aged 93, still at work on it. By 2025 Tecnam had delivered more than 7,500 aircraft to more than 65 countries and employed more than 500 people.

Fábricas

• Capua works · Oreste Salomone airport, Capua, Campania — Main production site
• Capodichino plant · Naples — Built with subcontract earnings in the late 1980s

Pessoas

• Luigi Pascale · co-founder and designer — Died March 2017 aged 93
• Giovanni Pascale · co-founder — Died 16 March 1999
• Paolo Pascale · CEO — Led design of the P92