CASA C-212 Aviocar C-212A (serie 100)

By the late 1960s the Spanish Air Force was still flying equipment from another age: three-engined Junkers Ju 52s and piston-engined Douglas C-47s. Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA answered with an eighteen-seat twin turboprop able to do everything — troop transport, air ambulance, paratroop dropping — and to be sold to civil operators as well. The first prototype flew on 26 March 1971 and in 1974 the air force decided to buy it under the name Aviocar.

The initial production version was the C-212A, also known as the C-212-5 or series 100M. In Spanish service it carried the designations T.12B for transport and D.3A for search and rescue without radar; the Spanish-language article counts 79 aircraft of this series delivered to Spain, between transports, dual-control navigation trainers, VIP aircraft and surveillance machines. The original military version totals 129 aircraft built.

The 100 series was defined by its 715 hp engines and a payload of up to 2000 kg, with a maximum take-off weight of 6500 kg in the European type certificate. Portugal, Chile and Indonesia followed Spain, and from the same airframe came the EC-212, an electronic intelligence and countermeasures subvariant developed for the Portuguese Air Force.