The Victa R-2 was a prototype Australian single-engine four-seat

light aircraft A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a Maximum Takeoff Weight, maximum gross takeoff weight of or less.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 308. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. Light aircraft are use ...

built by Victa Ltd in the early 1960s. A single example was built, first flying in February 1961, but no production followed.

Design and development

In September 1959, the Australian engineering company Victa Consolidated Industries, a major manufacturer of motor

lawnmower A lawn mower (also known as a grass cutter or simply mower, also often spelled lawnmower) is a device utilizing one or more revolving blades (or a reel) to cut a grass surface to an even height. The height of the cut grass may be fixed by the ...

s, established an aviation department. The first intended product was the Victa R-2, a four-seat single-engine light aircraft designed by Luigi Pellarini. Pellarini's design was a low-winged, all metal

tractor configuration In aviation, a tractor configuration is a propeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft with its engine mounted with the propeller in front, so that the aircraft is "pulled" through the air. This is the usual configuration; the pusher configuration ...

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

with a

T-tail A T-tail is an empennage wikt:configuration, configuration in which the tailplane of an aircraft is mounted to the top of the vertical stabilizer, fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs fr ...

, powered by a

Lycoming O-360 The Lycoming O-360 is a family of four-cylinder, direct-drive, horizontally opposed, air-cooled, piston aircraft engines. Engines in the O-360 series produce between , with the basic O-360 producing . The engine family has been installed in ...

flat-four A flat-four engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-four engine or boxer engine, is a four-cylinder piston engine with two banks of cylinders lying on opposite sides of a common crankshaft. The most common type of flat-four engine is the box ...

piston engine A reciprocating engine, more often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more Reciprocating motion, reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a Circular motion, rotating motion. This article ...

driving a constant-speed propeller. The prototype's wings were braced by struts, although production aircraft may have had fully cantilever wings. The wingtips and tail were raked to reduce drag. A retractable

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', that is arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has one or more nose wheels in a single front undercarriage and two or more main wheels slightly aft of th ...

was fitted, although the production of versions with fixed landing gear was considered for operations in

the bush "The bush" is a term mostly used in the English vernacular of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, where it is largely synonymous with hinterlands or backwoods. The fauna and flora contained within the bush is typically native to the regi ...

. A prototype first flew on 15 February 1961, by which time Victa had received several orders for the R-2. Despite these orders, no production followed. Victa had committed to production of the two-seat Airtourer (which had been ordered in much larger numbers than the R-2), and chose to develop a four-seater derivative of the Airtrainer, the Aircruiser, which was expected to be cheaper to build than the R-2, instead of continuing to develop the R-2. Pellarini left Victa, and later went on to design the Transavia PL-12 Airtruk agricultural biplane, although attempts by Pellarini to build a development of the R-2 as the Transavia PL-13 were unsuccessful.

Specifications (Performance estimated)

References

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External links

Victa R-2 Aircraft
{{Victa aircraft 1960s Australian civil utility aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1961 R-2 Low-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear