Polish Aviation!

 Lots still to Offer?

Poland made a few wise choices when it was part of the Soviet Warsaw pact in that of developing its own aircraft to meet its own military, civil and others middle areas for service and despite a changing world this has continued today with new type of smaller aircraft and adaptions to its newer western jet fighters!

Where it has been successful is in helicopters and agricultural, but now it is moving into the liaison market, with smaller aircraft, the Eagle man, but it is the Sokol helicopter based on the Mil-Mi-4 that just keeps going and is cheaper for many developing countries?

Poland was not very successful developing the Iskra jet trainer, but it did improve its fleet of ageing MIG-17/19 jets with board fairings, something that the Peoples Republic of China followed in!

Aerobatic/Racing Aircraft. Two.

Always a Demand!

Speed and aerobatics will always be a challenge to the aviator and records want to be broken all the time? Sport flying is adventurous, despite its dangers, people like the thrill and excitement of aircraft in this category?

There are always new concepts and ideas  coming to the fore in aircraft design and many of the worlds light training aircraft started off as competition aircraft before they became the SIA-Marchetti  SF-260 Warrior, Epsilon, Yakolev YAK-9/11, 52, Sukhoi SU-26, Shorts/EMB-Tucano, Pilatus PC-7/9, and many others too numerous to mention from around the world!

Many bi-planes developed from agricultural spray aircraft today fulfil the role of wing walking and other enjoyable aerobatic events!

Flying Boats Today? Part-Two.

Viable usages!

We tend to think what was popular seventy years ago would not be today, but many nations with little land and plenty of water are considering the re-introduction of the flying boats to save the development of prime agricultural lands!

Canada, China, Germany and Russia lead the way in flying boats, but the U.S and Japan have revitalised their own boats to re-join their maritime fleets. The flying boat is a very versatile platform, with the obvious they can also be used for military and civil transportation of good and people!

Their advantages are long range and the ability to land on the sea working with shipping in various roles, more to do with the military. Both Japan and the U.S.A. at one time used their aircraft in the search and rescue role and this is now a viable option once more to cover their vast coastlines and islands?

Aerobatic/Racing Aircraft. One.

New Concepts?

Older ideas from the bi-plane era and smaller lighter material has moved us away from agricultural spraying to aerobatic displays and racing. Now some of these bi-planes did put on shows back in the 1920' to 40's in the various showmen and stunt shows, but they seemed to have died out with the introduction of the jet age in the 1950's, when speed was all the new thing-craze?

But in recent years there has been a demand for air racing and many successful light training aircraft have been super-charged to meet this demand. Thus so has stunt flying returned and aerobatic displays, we will not cover the types of aircraft in this blog because there are so many!

That will be something for you to check out for yourself, meanwhile there are also many other machines, home or kit builds that meet the requirement of Micro-lights that too are meeting this new demand, Gyro-copters are coming back into the airshows around the world.