Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann variant
Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann Aero C-104
The post-war Czechoslovak Jungmann: 260 aircraft built by Aero in Prague between 1946 and 1949 with the Walter Minor 4-III engine, serving with the military academy and the aero clubs until 1964.
- 260
- Units built
History
When the Second World War ended, the Aero factory in Prague —which had built some 300 Bü 131D-2s for the Luftwaffe until September 1940— took up the Jungmann again for the needs of liberated Czechoslovakia. The first batch, designated Aero C-4, used up the Hirth HM 504 engines left on the premises: the German Wikipedia puts the number of aircraft completed this way at 20, the English one at between 20 and 30 with deliveries from April 1946, and the Air Britain Digest speaks of 12 salvaged with German engines.
Once the Hirths were exhausted, Aero switched to the domestic 105 hp Walter Minor 4-III and the designation changed to C-104. According to the English Wikipedia, 260 were built between 1946 and 1949 (248 according to the German Wikipedia's text), and they went to the Czechoslovak military academy; from 1947 civil aviation received them too and the aero clubs flew them for many years. The last C-104s were retired from the Svazarm, the paramilitary air-sports organisation, in 1964.
The Air Britain Digest adds the final chapter: in 1959-60 a good part of the surplus C-104s were sold to Switzerland, Austria and West Germany, where they fuelled the Jungmann's revival as a sport and aerobatic aircraft in private hands.