As goofy-looking at it is, the PL-11 Airtruck was in fact a successful crop-duster, appreciated by the pilots who flew it for a living. Only two were built, in New Zealand, but some of the 118 examples of its successor, the Australian Transavia PL-12 Air***k, are still at work all over the world. The Airtruck and Air***k were designed for a specific job—aerial application—rather than adapting a conventional aeroplane to the task. The pilot was placed high above both the engine and the chemicals hopper, rather than sitting between them waiting to be crushed in a crash, and the perch gave him a superb view for low-level maneuvering. The aft fuselage, often severely corroded by spilled chemicals in conventional dusters, was simply eliminated, replaced by two empennages at the ends of simple booms. (That the booms were intended to allow easy loading from a truck backed up between them is an oft-stated myth, since loading a conventional crop-duster's hopper from the side is equally easy.) The Airtruck's radial engine was a complete North American T-6 firewall-forward unit, nacelle and all; Bennett had bought a bunch of surplus, wingless RNZAF Harvards for £5 each.
Cheers,
Adrian.
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YES.....#12....NOT #1.......come on team, compared too some of those things, the Air**** is a super model.
