Czech state-run aero engine MRO company Lom Praha is overhauling eight Avia M337AK piston engines that power Zlin Z-43 and Z-142 single-engine propeller trainer aircraft operated by the Algerian Air Force.
The engines arrived from Algeria on a Lockheed Martin C-130H-30 transport aircraft and nine previously refurbished M337AKs were taken on the return flight, the Czech MoD noted on its website on 6 June.
Algeria operates five Zlin Z-43 (Safir 43) and forty-six Z-142 (Fernas 142) single-engine propeller trainer aircraft. The Zlín Z 42 is a single-engine two-seat Czechoslovakian trainer aircraft manufactured by Moravan Otrokovice.
Overhauling the M337AK engines is part of a long-term defence industrial cooperation arrangement between the Czech Republic and Algeria.
The Z-43 and Z-142 aircraft are produced locally in Algeria as the Safir-43 and Fernas 142 respectively.
According to Lom Praha, aircraft powered by the M337AK are capable of basic aerobatics with a maximum inverted flight time of 5 seconds.
Lom Praha had earlier carried out MRO work on Ghana’s Mi-171sh helicopter to assist the West African country fight the COVID-19 pandemic and transport medical supplies and personnel around the country. Likewise, in 2019, the Czech company overhauled an Mi-8MTV-5 (GHF690) for Ghana.
Before that, Lom Praha upgraded the avionics of Nigerian air forces’ L-39 Albatross to the Genesys standard, in a bid to modernize the fleet and to tackle terrorism.
Lom Praha subsequently trained Nigerian air force pilots and technicians at it’s at LOM Praha’s CLV flight-training center.
State-owned Czech company LOM Praha began training the Nigerian pilots in the first half of 2018 at the CLV Pardubice air training center in the Czech Republic to improve their air-to-air and air-to-ground combat skills.