Overview
Pacific Aerospace was a New Zealand aircraft manufacturer based at Hamilton Airport that built single-engine utility aeroplanes for agricultural, training, and short-field transport work. Over four decades it produced agricultural topdressers, the CT/4 Airtrainer military trainer, and the rugged turboprop P-750 XSTOL. The company was liquidated in 2021, and its type certificates and Hamilton production line passed to NZAero, which continues the 750XL line today.
Heritage
Pacific Aerospace grew out of James Aviation, a Hamilton agricultural-aviation firm, and built its reputation on the Fletcher FU-24 topdresser and its turboprop successor the PAC Cresco, workhorses of New Zealand’s aerial-topdressing industry. It also built the CT/4 Airtrainer, a piston military trainer flown by the RNZAF, RAAF, and other air forces. The company first flew the PAC 750XL in 2001 and type-certificated it as the P-750 XSTOL in 2003, and the type became its best-known export. After Pacific Aerospace was liquidated in 2021, NZSkydive Ltd acquired the business and continued production under the Pacific Aerospace name before renaming the company NZAero in 2023.
Design Signature
Pacific Aerospace built for payload and field performance rather than speed. The 750XL mated the wing and Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A powerplant of the agricultural Cresco to a large slab-sided fuselage on fixed tricycle gear, producing an aeroplane able to lift more than its own empty weight off unimproved strips under 800 feet. The same agricultural roots, a strong and simple structure built to work from rough ground with minimal support, run through the company’s earlier topdressers and into the aircraft NZAero builds today.
For Owners
Pacific Aerospace no longer trades as an independent company; support for its in-service fleet, including the P-750 XSTOL, has passed to NZAero at Hamilton, which also builds the current 750XL-II. The Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A engine is supported worldwide, while airframe parts and type-specific expertise remain concentrated in New Zealand and at regional distributors. Buyers will most often meet Pacific Aerospace aircraft on the used market, flown in skydiving, bush-cargo, and aerial-work roles where short-field access and payload matter more than cruise speed.
