Fourteen trainers for a flying club

Not long after the CT/4 entered production, a Swiss company called Breco Trading ordered 14 CT/4B Airtrainers from Hamilton, New Zealand, ostensibly for a Swiss flying club. Breco turned out to be a front for the sanctioned Rhodesian Air Force. The New Zealand government embargoed the finished aircraft, which sat in storage for six years before being sold to the RAAF, and the financial strain helped push the manufacturer, New Zealand Aerospace Industries, into its next form: Pacific Aerospace Corporation, in 1982. NZAI itself had been formed in 1973 from Air Parts (NZ), which built Fletcher topdressers, and Aero Engine Services, which built the Airtourer.

Topdressers and skydivers

The CT/4, first flown on 23 February 1972, became the basic trainer of the RAAF, the RNZAF and the Royal Thai Air Force; Australians called it the plastic parrot for its gaudy paint, though it is all metal. 155 were built by 2024. For farmers PAC built the Fletcher and the turboprop Cresco, of which 39 were made. From the Cresco’s wing came the 750XL of 2001, a turboprop that can lift a load of skydivers to 12,000 ft and be back on the ground in ten minutes. More than 120 had been built by January 2019, and licence production went to China.

Wonsan and the end

In September 2016 a PAC 750XL was seen flying at the Wonsan air festival in North Korea. In 2017 the company pleaded guilty to breaching UN Security Council sanctions. In February 2021 it told the Civil Aviation Authority it was insolvent, and its operating certificate was suspended. That April NZSkydive Ltd bought the business out of administration and kept trading under the Pacific Aerospace name until 1 November 2023, when it became NZAero. With its predecessors, the Hamilton works has sold more than 700 utility, training and agricultural aircraft.

Továrny

• Hamilton works · Hamilton Airport, New Zealand — Home of AESL, NZAI, PAC and NZAero