Navy’s Research and Development Unit produced a new Air Boat with a view of empowering operations of the Navy in an emergency situations, specially like floods. 

Accordingly the newly produced Air Boat was launched in the presence of Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Eng. Karunasena Hettiarachchi, at Kajugaha Kumbura Lake, in Welisara Naval Base. 

Since Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy, Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne assumed duty in the office, the Navy’s Research and Development Unit undertook many Community Service Projects over the last year. 

The latest invention of it, the Air Boat is yet another remarkable production of the innovative hand of the Sri Lanka Navy.

In the market this type of an Air Boat costs around Rs 12.5 million. However due to the expertise of the Research and Development Unit, they managed invent this product at a relative low cost around Rs 1.7 million. The special feature of this Air Boat is, its propeller is fixed well above the water level, so in rescue missions where the naval personnel have to pull people in distress off water, it will cause no harm to the people and boat it self.   Further, the basic structure of this Air Boat and related informative know-how were given by Commodore Priyantha Perera who is a specialist in Naval Diving.