Country of origin:

Australia

Description:

Four-seat light cabin monoplane

Power Plant:

One 149 kw (200 hp) Lycoming IO-360-A1A four-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine

Specifications:

History:

The Shrike was a development of the Victa Aircruiser. The rights to the Aircruiser had been obtained by AESL (Aero Engine Services Ltd) from Victa Consolidated Industries when it closed its aircraft manufacturing plant at Milperra, NSW. It was re-designed and became the AESL CT-4 series in New Zealand.

Subsequently Millicer Aircraft Industries Pty Ltd (MAI) of Sale, VIC was formed to put a development of the Airtourer into production, and to develop a new four-seat aircraft which would be a development of the Aircruiser. Full ownership rights to the Australian Type Certificate were obtained, with the assistance of the late Henry Millicer (the aircraft’s original designer). The new design was based on the Aircruiser but had a number of changes made to the design, including replacement of the six-cylinder Continental engine with a four-cylinder Lycoming of similar output.

It was expected the prototype of the new aircraft would be completed and flown in early 1998 but the company shelved the construction of the prototype for a period pending the placement into production of the re-designed Airtourer. The original production schedule was for 14 aircraft to be built in 1999, and 28 in 2000. The Shrike, as it was originally named, was renamed the Aircruiser and was to be available with either dual stick or dual yoke controls as a factory fitted option. It was to be certificated in the utility category as a four-seater and have a limited aerobatic capability with two persons on board. Although it was structurally and aero-dynamically capable of being fully aerobatic at reduced weight, it could not be certificated as such because only one cabin door was planned to be installed. In 2001 the design was put on hold until sufficient finance was available to proceed with the design.

In the event, Millicer Aircraft Industries went into liquidation and only two examples of the new Airtourer series were constructed. However, later Aerial Agriculture at Bankstown, NSW announced it proposed to put the Aircruiser into production in the early 21st century, with production to take place at Bankstown and Albion Park, NSW. However, this did not take place and in 2013 rights to the type were obtained by Brumby Aircraft of Cowra, NSW, which has produced the Brumby light aircraft series. After computer redesigning of the aircraft to make the aircraft easier to build, it was expected production of a prototype would commence in 2016.  However, a prototype had not been built at time of publication due to work involved with production of the Brumby series in China.