Infante de Orlenas Foundation (FIO)

This aircraft is a military trainer designed in 1948 by Iberavia, a company later absorbed by Aeronautica Industrial, S.A (AISA). It was designed by a team of engineers leaded by Juan de Campo Aguilera for the Air Force, in order to replace their obsolete trainers Bücker Jungmann. On account of a lack of raw materials the aircraft was constructed mainly in wood, thus making it notoriously heavy. Moreover it was also underpowered fitted with the only available engines; the national produced ENMASA engines. As a result the I-115 had a disturbing tendency to quickly enter in a spin.

After two prototypes, it entered the production lines in 1956. About 200 units were produced in the AISA factory of Carabanchel, which is close to Cuatro Vientos. The E-9 (its Air Force name) never fulfilled the mission it was designed for; So that the E-9 flew for many years along the Bücker, the plane it was supposed to replace. It was mainly used for basic training in instrumental flight and as re-trainer of pilots. At least it fully replaced the HM1, which was also a Spanish airplane designed by Pedro Huarte Mendicoa. The HM1 'enjoyed' even a worse fame than the Garrapata. Pilots joked saying that HM stood for 'Hombre Muerto', Dead Man in Spanish.

This airplane never received an official name. It is believed that it was nicknamed 'Garrapata' by the Air Force cadets because of the annoying tendency to stick to the ground during take-off, like a 'garrapata' (tick in Spanish). In 1976 they were retired and most of them were handed over to flying clubs. There is one unit still flying in the flying club of Menorca and the FIO owns an airworthy Garrapata as well. The flying club of Sabadell used to operate three of them, but they were retired after two accidents.

The Fleet Model 1 and its derivatives were a family of two-seat trainer and sports plane produced in the United States and Canada in the 1920s and 30s. They all shared the same basic design and varied mainly in their powerplants. They were all orthodox biplanes with staggered, single-bay wings of equal span and fixed tailskid undercarriage. Accommodation was provided for two in tandem, originally sharing a single open cockpit, but in most examples in separate open cockpits. The fuselage was made of welded steel tube and the wings had a wooden spar with duralumin ribs, the entire aircraft being fabric-covered. Despite a superficial resemblance to Consolidated's highly successful Trusty and Husky designs (hence the "Husky Junior" nickname), the Model 14 was an all-new design.

Originally created as a means for Consolidated to enter the civil market, the company abandoned this ambition shortly before the completion of the first prototype. The manufacturing rights were purchased by designer and Consolidated company president Reuben Fleet to put into production himself under a new enterprise, Fleet Aircraft. It was an immediate success, and in the first year of production alone, over 300 machines were sold. Consolidated quickly responded by buying Fleet Aircraft and retaining it as a subsidiary while opening a second production line at Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada. Canadian manufacturing was a great success, with some 600 examples built for the Royal Canadian Air Force as the Fleet Fawn (Model 7) and Fleet Finch (Model 16).

A small number of US-built machines were purchased by the US military, including a batch evaluated by the United States Army Air Corps as the PT-16 but not bought in quantity, and six specialised N2Y trainers for the United States Navy equipped with hooks to catch the trapeze on aircraft-carrying airships and train F9C Sparrowhawk pilots. US manufacturing rights were eventually sold to Brewster, which intended to produce the Brewster B-1 based on the Canadian Model 16F.

Nice stuff!

Nice shots, wow quite a collection of aircraft, thanks for sharing. 8) 8)

gekho said:

The de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide was a British short-haul passenger airliner of the 1930s. Designed by the de Havilland company in late 1933 as a faster and more comfortable successor to the DH.84 Dragon, it was in effect a twin-engined, scaled-down version of the four-engined DH.86 Express. It shared many common features with the larger aircraft including its tapered wings, streamlined fairings and the Gipsy Six engine, but it demonstrated none of the operational vices of the larger aircraft and went on to become perhaps the most successful British-built commercial passenger aircraft of the 1930s.

One famous incident involving the use of a DH.89 was in July 1936 when two British MI6 intelligence agents, Cecil Bebb and Major Hugh Pollard, flew Francisco Franco in one from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco, at the start of the military rebellion which began the Spanish Civil War.

This example was made in England during the 30s, flew for some private airliners and took part in the WWII, recibing a hit of the german AAA. I was acquired by the FIO in England for 150.000 pounds, and was introduced to public in 2009. This year has been repainted with the colours of the Iberia Airline.

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i have a few hours, vices she had a few. swing on takeoff, not an aircraft you powered onto the runway. tip stall. on a bad day she would float, and float so you go around. taxing was easy if you had a third hand. juggling throttle and brakes required a bit of hand swapping. center of gravity is always an issue, don't sit the fat guy at the back, kick the fat guy to back on finals lol one of the queens always had problems with crank end float.

Gekho been gone or last seen in 2015

Micdrow said:

Gekho been gone or last seen in 2015

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You mean the master of cut-and-paste text and images from other people's sites.

Micdrow said:

Gekho been gone or last seen in 2015

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OH so i'm a bit late then? should have ad a coffee this morning eye