Over time, some very good things have come out of Australia-boomerangs, koala bears, and Fosters Lager, to name a few. And now there’s a new addition to that list. This past summer, Gippsland Aeronautics, based in the Latrobe Valley in southeastern Australia, received FAA certification for its GA-8 Airvan-an eight-seat, utility aircraft that was designed for flying in the bush. Or, as the bush is known in Australia, the Outback.
The Airvan was designed to fill a perceived gap between the Cessna 206/207 models and the larger, turbine-powered Cessna 208 Caravan. In fact, the Airvan looks very much like a shrunk-down version of the Caravan, with a boxy, big-window fuselage, but a Lycoming IO-540 piston engine instead of the Caravan’s larger, turbine powerplant. But if the airplane’s nose also looks a bit familiar to EAA enthusiasts, it might have something to do with the fact that Peter Furlong, who designed the GA-8, was also the first person in Australia to build a Wittman Tailwind.
