Transavia Corporation

Transavia Corporation Pty Ltd was founded in 1965 as a subsidiary of Transfield NSW Pty Ltd to build agricultural aircraft.

History

The precursor of the Bennett Airtruck was designed in New Zealand by Luigi Pellarini and flew for the first time in 1956. It was here at the agricultural aircraft Kingsford Smith PL.7. When building found parts of disused North American Harvard, along with a Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah radial engine use. Two further developed agricultural aircraft, the PL -11 Airtruck were also built in New Zealand in the early 1960s by Bennett Aviation and later Waitomo Aircraft Ltd..

The basic design was taken over by Transavia in 1965 and improved, so that the end result was the Transavia PL -12 Airtruk. The PL -12 had an unconventional yet functional design, thus it was outstandingly suitable for their intended purpose in agriculture. A revised version brought Transavia 1981, the PL -12 -300 " Skyfarmer " with reinforced upper fuselage and a larger cockpit, on the market. Another, the last version, the PL -12- 400 series which was powered by a Lycoming IO -720 piston engine with 400 hp. Overall, Transavia produced 119 Airtruks. Many are still in use.