Pipistrel Asia Pacific is Pipistrel’s hub for dedicated business development on new fast-growing markets

Ivo Boscarol has been actively involved in alternative aviation since 1975, when Slovenia was still a part of former Yugoslavia. In that time alternative and microlight flying was illegal – in fact it did not exist at all. The airfield Ivo was using belonged to the military, so the first alternative pilots, if they wanted to fly, had to do it in secret. They had to wait until pilots who flew conventional aircraft finished flying for the day, locked the hangar and went home, and then try to sneak in for an hour of flying before the darkness fell. Because they were flying so late in the evening, using lights at the front of their alternative aircraft, and because the powered hang-gliders had triangular-shaped wings, the local people started to call them “those bats”. The Latin word for a “bat” is “Pipistrellus” – and the rest is history.