By Deanne Jeffers
IN THE 1960s, Australian small motor and lawn mower manufacturer, Victa Ltd., moved into aviation. Between 1961 and 1966, when production in Australia was suspended, Victa Ltd. produced 168 Airtourer aircrafts in Sydney.
Andrew Clement, ‘Clemo’, achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot in 2001 and purchased his Airtourer project in 2004. With the help of local airplane engineers like Norm Edwards, Clemo invested countless hours and resources into rebuilding the 1966 Airtourer.
“We stumbled across a retired Qantas airframe painter, who retired from Qantas in Melbourne and moved to Murchison. Would you believe of all places?” said Andrew.
“He was 10 minutes down the road and came out and looked at it and said it’s such a cute little thing, I hadn’t intended to paint any more airplanes, but he said, I’ll paint that for you.”
The Airtourer, which had undergone modifications from previous owners, is painted in the design of the New Zealand Air Force.
Failing to protect Victa Aviation from cheaper American imports like Cessna, A New Zealand company called AESL resumed production and made a further 80 Airtourers enabling existing models to be upgraded and modifications to a military trainer.
The 1966 Airtourer has been upgraded and has a 160-horsepower engine and a constant speed propeller, giving maximum acceleration on the ground and taking off, which helps keeps revs down while giving more speed.
Andrew’s first flight in his 1966 Airtourer was in 2008, and he’s flown over 1,000 hours since then across Australia.
On why he chose the Airtourer, Andrew said, “The more research I did, I found out the Airtourer has room for two people, they’ve got good luggage capacity and good fuel capacity. They’re actually quite a good touring aircraft and still aerobatic.”
“It is a very rare creature because there’s been very few Australian built and produced aircrafts, and it was ahead of its time in a lot of safety features. It came into being as there was a need for a modern all-metal training aircraft to replace older fabric covered planes, such as the Tiger Moth,” explained Andrew.
