Historia de la Bücker 131 en España por Antonio Morales

Video from the channel Aviación RACV about Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 37:57. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

A talk by Antonio Morales on the history of the Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann in Spain. It draws on photographs, documentation and pieces from the Museo de Aeronáutica y Astronáutica, and includes contributions from the aeroclub's organisers. It reviews the aircraft's arrival, its licence-built manufacture, its service in the Ejército del Aire (Spanish Air Force) and its technical particularities.

According to the speaker, the Jungmann was first shown in Spain in 1935, at Barajas, during a European tour by Bücker's test pilot, who died later that year over Austria. The aircraft arrived in 1936, in the midst of the civil war, to train pilots on Franco's side at Tablada and El Copero (Seville). There were 55 German-built units: the first with an 80 hp Hirth engine and the rest with 100 hp. In 1939 the licence was bought and CASA built 530: around 200 with the Hirth engine and 330 with the Elizalde Tigre engine, which from 1951 passed to ENMA. In total, around 625 flew in Spain. Designated CASA 1.131 (single engine, model 131), it was the Ejército del Aire's most numerous aircraft. It trained pilots at the Academia General del Aire, created in 1945, until 1976, and its last examples passed to squadron 781 in Granada. Spanish designs with the same engine, such as the Huarte Mendicoa HM-1 or the AISA I-115, failed to replace it.

The aircraft has a chrome-molybdenum steel tube fuselage and fabric-covered wooden wings. The upper and lower wings are interchangeable and there are ailerons on all four panels. Its landing gear is narrow, which makes it tricky on the ground. The Spanish version was two centimetres longer and heavier (720 kg), with reinforced gear and a shorter range (400 km). The Tigre engine, rated at 125 hp, evolved into a fifth version allowing prolonged inverted flight and electric starting. The aircraft also retained an inertia crank starter. The speaker also explains the difficulty of identifying each example from its manufacturer's plates and shows the funnel-and-tube intercoms used by student and instructor.