In 1981 Gold Wings Aviation, a private company under Capt. Panfilo Villaruel Jr. (who later became chief of the Air Transportation Office (ATO) and president of the Philippine Aerospace Development Corporation (PADC)), conceived an aircraft research and development undertaking called the Norlindo program, named after one of its first engineers. The program covered a progressive development of a high-performance trainer primarily intended for use by the Philippine Air Force (PAF). The program was launched as an innovative step to build an aircraft of local design and utilizing indigenous materials. Out of these experiences, a single, piston engine trainer aircraft was conceived, designed, built and flown within three years.
The two-seat tandem Defiant prototype (registered as RP-X239) was a technical arrangement of various systems and parts taken from different types of aircraft in the PAF inventory. The landing gears, flight controls and flaps motor were taken from the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, seats from the Cessna U-17B, rudder and brake pedals from the Boeing-Stearman PT-13 and various instrument items from the Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander, T-34 Mentor, Sikorsky S-76 and SIAI-Marchetti SF.260. The Defiant was powered by a single Lycoming IO-540-K1B5 piston engine on loan from the PADC, the same engine that powers the BN-2 Islander.
The airframe was fabricated from palosapis wood and the skin from tanguile veneer plywood. The engine mount was fabricated from chrome molybdenum steel and a one-piece plastic canopy was fabricated. Fuel tanks were constructed with 5052-H34 aluminum alloys. The development cost about 40 million.
Only one prototype was built, in 1986. The two-seater aircraft made its first flight on 22 February 1988, flying for about an hour.
Based on the successful flights of the prototype, Gold Wings planned to build another prototype of a modified Defiant (appropriately named Defiant 500) with an all-metal airframe and power rating increased to 500 hp. Due to lack of financial support from the government, the plan did not go ahead.
The Defiant 300 went on display in a hangar at the Philippine State College of Aeronautics.
Defiant 300
Engine: 1 × Textron Lycoming IO-540-K1B5, 224 kW (300 hp)
Wingspan: 9.52 m (31 ft 3 in)
Wing area: 12.55 m² (135.1 sq ft)
Airfoil: NACA 2418 (root), NACA 2412 (tip)
Length: 8.51 m (27 ft 11 in)
Height: 3.73 m (12 ft 3 in)
Empty weight: 1,278 kg (2,818 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 1,583 kg (3,490 lb)
Maximum speed: 357 km/h (222 mph; 193 kn)
Stall speed: 110 km/h (68 mph; 59 kn) (flaps down)
Range: 1,896 km (1,178 mi; 1,024 nmi)
Service ceiling: 7,520 m (24,670 ft)
Rate of climb: 7.8 m/s (1,540 ft/min)
Crew: Two
