WALTER VAN TILBORG MEMORIAL COLLECTION
No. 2249. Aviones de Colombia AC-05 Pijao (HK-3631-X c/n AC-050001)
Photograph from Aviones de Colombia

Aviones de Colombia AC-05 Pijao

03/15/2007. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "In 1973 Urdaneta y Galvez Ltda of Bogota, Columbia (Cessna distributor since 1961) started assembling and partly building the 188 AgWagon and other Cessna models. The company was renamed Aviones de Colombia (also known as Aviodeco) by 1978. In 1985 Cessna suspended the production of the Model 188; since the first flight of the prototype on February 19, 1965, thousands had been produced as the AgWagon, AgPickup, AgTruck and AgHusky.

Aviones de Colombia continued the production of the model 188 agricultural aircraft under the designation AC-05 Pijao, the photo depicting the prototype. Powered by a 285 hp Continental IO-520 the first flight was made on April 10, 1991, whereafter it was reregistered HK-3631-E. The Pijao differed slightly from the original Cessna and only 15 were built (powered by a 300 hp Continental IO-520-D) before the company closed down in the late 1990s.

The rights were sold to Texlond Corp. S.A., a division of Siper Aviacion, Buenos Aires, Argentinia. Texlond opened a plant at Fray Bent, Rio Negro, Uruguay in 2001. In 2005 a Pijao (c/n AC-050007), original built by Aviones de Columbia, was being refurbished to become the factory demonstrator aircraft. Registered on the Uruguayan Registry as CX-XTC-X the aircraft made its second maiden flight on November 24, 2006. Early March 2007 Texlond had a series of 6 aircraft in production."


Created March 4, 2003