After more than 40 years since its first flight, the L-410 UVP-T transport aircraft with fuselage number 0731 (nicknamed Máňa in the aviation community), which until recently served to train military pilots at the Air Training Centre of the state enterprise LOM PRAHA, is returning to its native Kunovice in the Uherské Hradiště region. Now it is waiting for a well-deserved rest and admiration of the general public. The new exhibit will be displayed on the outdoor area of the Kunovice Aviation Museum, a branch of the Slovácké Aeroklub Kunovice. The exterior and part of the interior of the aircraft will be open to visitors.  

"We are very happy about this aircraft. Four hundred and ten of them are already in the museum, including the first prototype, but they are all older versions. However, we have been missing the UVP variant for a long time. The machine has an interesting history, and it is a saloon aircraft. It will thus expand our unique collection of four VIP aircraft," says Martin Hrabec, director of the Kunovice Aviation Museum, about "Máni".

The aircraft set off on its 220-kilometre-long overland journey on 7 March. It is on loan to the Kunovice Aviation Museum for a period of eight years. The loan was confirmed by the signatures of the director of LOM PRAHA s.p. Jiří Protiva and the director of the Kunovice museum Martin Hrabec on 15 February.

The machine is incomplete and no longer airworthy. Most of the units and airframes are outdated and would require overhaul and partial revisions. The dismantling of the aircraft in the premises of the Pardubice CLV was taken care of by Kunovice museum staff, many of whom have many years of experience working on L-410 machines. They will be assisted with the subsequent reassembly directly by the manufacturer, Aircraft Industries, which will provide logistic facilities and original equipment. "This is a big help for us. If all goes well, the aircraft should be ready for display this summer," says M. Hrabec, adding: "We have been cooperating with Aircraft Industries and LOM PRAHA for a long time and we are glad that they support us in such a significant way. They are definitely one of our leading partners."

The aircraft was manufactured in Kunovice Let, as the factory was then called, on 25 November 1981 and was taken over by the Czechoslovak Army in December, serving at the base in Prague-Kbely. At the end of the 1980s it was used as a parlour machine for transporting foreign weapons inspectors of the CSCE organisation (the predecessor of today's OSCE). In 2002 it moved to the air unit in Pardubice, where it was taken over by the newly established Air Training Centre of the state enterprise LOM PRAHA in 2004.

The first flight of L-410 UVP-T No. 0731 in CLV took place on 15 December 2005 (crew Ručka, Solil) and the last flight of "Máni" was on 22 October 2020 (crew Červený, Karmazin). The total flight time of No. 0731 is 3,517 hours and the number of landings is 5,816. For the sake of completeness, it should be said that since its inception CLV has had two L-410s in service. In addition to the above-mentioned "Mania", it was also the "Forty-six" No. 0928. The L-410 aircraft flew a total of 7,870 flight hours until 2023 and 51 pilots of the Czech Army completed training on them.