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N211BP is a famous Jungmann. Owned for most of it's life by the Pfaff family, Bob Pfaff wrote a story about the aircraft which you can read here: The Great Transcontinental Airmail Dash. 



When the Pfaff family stewardship came to an end, the aircraft was purchased by a Long Island collector but unfortunately on the delivery flight a ground loop cut the trip short in Atlantic City, NJ. The aircraft was repaired and recovered by a well  regarded shop. It was painted in a style that reflected the new owner's taste and attention to detail.

Offered for sale again, the aircraft was purchased by Swiss airline pilot John Simon who had it shipped to an airfield close to Zurich. Unfortunately, for reasons beyond his control, John now finds himself unable to operate the Jungmann and has decided to pass it on to a new owner.

As you might imagine for an aircraft of this specification, quality and location John has a lot of money tied up in N211BP but is keen for a quick sale, hence it is offered at US$90,000 with a further and substantial discount for a buyer that can move quickly.



Importantly the aircraft retains it current US registration and certificate of airworthiness. Should it come back to the USA it will only need to have its operating limitations updated by the FSDO to reflect its new location per the rules for Experimental/Exhibition aircraft.

The aircraft is currently disassembled ready for shipment which can be arranged by the buyer or negotiated with the seller.

Please contact John Simon at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Like it's brothers and sisters the Bücker Bestmann was built under license (or sometimes coercion) in a number of other countries. The most prolific licensee was the Zlin company in Otrokovice, Czechoslovakia.  The Z381 being the final development of the type.

The Egyptian Heliopolis Aircraft Works built aircraft based on the Z381, initially equipped with Czech Walter Minor 4-III engines but over time transitioning through 6 variants to the final Mk6 aircraft equipped with Continental O-300 engines and sometimes a bubble, rather than faceted canopy. Heliopolis renamed the aircraft "Heliopolis Gomhouria". A name unfortunately similar to that of a nasty disease in English. (It actually means "Republic")

Over the years many of these Mk6 aircraft have come up for disposal in batches and at seemingly attractive prices. At one time Shadin, the well known American manufacturer of fuel-flow computers advertised them as the "Shadin Aero-pony". Later, a group of US enthusiasts (including well-known Bücker restorer Woody Menear)  contemplated importing a batch. About 20 aircraft were reported to have been obtained by German aircraft collector Ernest Mika and at the time of writing, a group of Swiss pilots is considering a bulk purchase.

This brings us to Dallas, Texas collector Dr. Andres Katz who is having one of the Gomhouria brought back to flying condition in his native Hungary. Dr. Katz kindly supplied a few pictures of the aircraft as the process begins.

Colonel Carlos Presa and his wife Julie operate this beautiful and very original Jungmann in Central Spain. It has an interesting story:



I got my Jungmann 10 years ago, it is a full reconstruction using all original parts, mainly surplus of the Spanish Air Force (ESP AF) that I can still get in our junkyards.

I have been able to maintain it within the ESP AF loop, with lots of support and knowledge from the old masters in the different Maestranzas Aéreas (Air Force depots). One of the attached pics is of my Bücker sleeping in Seville with its big Air Force sisters. ESP AF authorized me to wear military markings with the 79-31 reference, and I’ve taken it with me to my latest posts.

The aircraft is hangered in Marugán, Segovia. My wife Julie (a beautiful retired US Navy Commander) and myself enjoy great evenings there after a good flight over Central Spain. However, I am retiring in a year from now and I will sell it after that, and get a better toy for a senior ex-soldier.

Carlos


From Nick Barnhard:

The Dornier fleet at Henstridge (UK) is thriving, (A-15, A-35 and U-80) all with new props by Hercules Propellors of Dursely, The original props will be offered for sale soon.

Photographs of Jungmann in Japan are rare indeed. Brian Karli found these two sad example on an aero-modeling site.



I had no idea this film existed until today. It shows Mira's careers in the Jungmann, Fournier, Bearcat, B747, Lunak and hydroplanes. Very well worth the time to watch, the flying footage is exceptional particularly in the second half where Mira's full Jungmann airshow routine is featured.


This beautifully finished CASA Jungmann was the pride and joy of the late Wolf Trautmann. It is now being offered for sale by the family and is located in the Portland, Oregon area. A website has been set up to facilitate the sale which you can view here:  https://buckerjungmannfor.sale/ 

 

When flying without a parachute some sort of seat cushion is needed. After years of sitting on whatever old garments were lying around in the hangar I started the process of making real cushions. I took a sheet of insulating foam and cut it into sections that fit the seat pan. The sections were then glued together and carved to exactly fit the seats.



My plan was to add some closed cell "temperfoam" and then cover it in a suitable upholstery material. That plan was changed, however, when a hangar neighbor pointed out that he knew someone expert in crafting leather upholstery who would probably may be able to help.

Enter Nathan Stewart. Nathan makes leather upholstery for motorcycles and other vehicles and is now able to make Bücker seats, seat backs and headrests on request. You can choose just the seat cushion or a complete leather cockpit. You can select almost any material, color, design and stitching style you like. Some examples of his work are shown below. N28BU has plain cushions, N131HT has the diamond stitched seats, seat back and headrest. The cushions are retained in place by a cord that passes through the two drain holes in the bottom of the seat.

 

To order seats and discuss the design contact Nathan directly at +1 614 961 9681 by text message or by voice. If you are unable to connect, email me and I will pass on your message.


Garret Brady is in the process of transferring CASA Jungmann F-AZZF from France to the Republic of Ireland where it will be registered as EI-LIL. It will be based near Dublin. (Garret is one of several savvy aviators I know who have incorporated their wife's name into the aircraft registration :) 

The move will be facilitated by the Republic being part of the EU still, unlike Norther Ireland which was subject to Brexit. 




There are currently an unusual number of Jungmann for sale in Europe and the USA. This one appeared recently and seems well priced. Click the image for details.


Our long time Bücker fellow Pete Cunniff passed away on Wednesday Feb. 12th after a long battle with cancer. 

Pete called me about three weeks ago and told me that he did not have much time left. I believe he wanted to say good bye. Pete was such a great guy and a very dear friend. Pete flew across the channel many times  to meet with us in the Bücker community.

He came to Degerfeld several times. When Pete was around we always had a great time with him and his fellow Nigel. His sense of humour was outstanding.

Here is a little story: Some years ago he flew into Switzerland, I believe to the Kestenholz meeting. He called the airfield and they said: „Report Echo“. Pete: „Where ist Echo“. Station: „Report Echo“. After severals calls Pete yelled „Where the f… is Echo“. He landed and went straight to the controller to apologize.

At Hahnweide some years ago, at the end oft he show when all warbids had left or were stowed away, Pete flew a low pass with a trumpet player in the front seat of his Jungmann. It was raining. „Yen a bon“. Pete flew anyway.

Pete my dear friend, rest in the deep blue skies. We miss you.  ~ Hermann

Dear Bücker enthusiasts,

We have found a host for the Bücker Fly-In 2025 with the Quax pilots at Bienenfarm EDOI which is located about 50 miles west of the Berlin International airport. If you don't come with your Bücker you may fly into Berlin end enjoy the historic capital of Germany.

The VAWC (Vintage Aerobatic World Championship) will take place there at the same time, where the Landshut Bücker colleagues will be there anyway. We can join in and will be integrated into the event. Participation in the competition will also be possible for other Bücker pilots if they are interested in taking part.

At the VAWC we will get to know many pilots from other categories. Our Bücker friends from the northernarea will have a suitable platform in their "homeland". 

Hangar spaces are available. Depending on weather conditions, those will be available for us. There are hotels nearby, shuttles are offered. Camping is also possible on site. No landing fees will be charged during the event.Bienenfarm is setting up a link via which you can register your plane, PPR is required. The link will be published here as soon as it is available, or you can visit the QUAX website by clicking the image below.



On Saturday there will be an evening event in the tent which will be available to the pilots as a pilot area during the whole event.

We will see the only flying Bücker Student, hopefully in the air. Many thanks to Alexander Stendel, Matthias Hanisch and Kay Rechthien who will make it possible to meet at their airfield. They will prepare a really great event for us. There is also confirmation from Nordholz Spieka for a fly-in in another year. Ludolf Ungerer has done a great job for us and would love to be the host. Many thanks to him for his commitment.

Here is an appetizer from Degerfeld 2024.




   

Richard Santus has an LOM 332 engine and V410 propeller for sale. Contact Richard at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The last two CASA 1.131 Jungmann top center sections from the Marcus bates collection have become available. Contact Simon Diver at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Enjoy these two videos from the Aeroverse "Pilot Odyssey" series featuring none other than long time Bücker owner Jeff Rowland.




AEROVERSE is a streaming app that has secured content from across the globe including documentaries and TV shows featuring the best aircraft and aviators. You can find out more at https://aeroverse.com 

By Brian Karli

I know social media has its good and bad traits, but sometimes the good benefits those of us who passionately love Bückers.  There was a post the other day which made me say, “I never knew that”.
 
I have always been fascinated by famed Bücker pilot Prince Constantin Catancuzino. He is famously known for his spectacular Jungmeister aerobatic routine that left the audience spellbound. Low level snap rolls gave predictions of an early demise. 
 
You can see his routine here: Jungeister in the Bull Ring

Anyway, back to social media.  This popped up on Facebook.  



So I clicked on the link:



It was so sad seeing the Jungmeister smoldering in the field.  
 
Since Cantacuzino’s name came up again, I started searching for information about him.  Yes, he was Romania’s most successful WWII fighter pilot with 48 confirmed (and 11 unconfirmed) victories.  But did you know he fought WITH the Germans and then AGAINST the Germans?



In 1944, when Romania quit the Axis, they switched to the Allied side and Cantucuzino went from protecting Heinkel 111’s to shooting them down. One time, when his ME-109 was damaged, Cantacuzino hopped in a P-51 and on his first flight proceeded to dazzled everyone with his aerobatics.
 
Wow.
 
Before the war, Cantacuzino married Anca Diamande and they had a daughter who became who became a famous Romanian writer.  She wrote with a pen name of Oana Orlea, but her real name was Iona Cantacuzino.
 
More things under the category of “I didn’t know that”.
 
At age 16, Iona was jailed for distributing anti communist manifestos.  She was given a four year prison sentence.  After she was released from her labor camp, she was forbidden to continue her studies and forced to earn her living as a welder and supplemented her income by washing hair at a salon.  Under constant surveillance, she was finally able to flee to France where she wrote several books about the Romanian Gulags.


After the war, the Communists took over Romania and imprisoned the old elite (Cantacuzino was a Prince, remember) and confiscated all personal property.  So much for being a famous war ace.  Cantacuzino’s lost all his family land and his wife left him.
 
Not all was lost.  In 1946, he met and married a Romanian film star named Nadia Kujnar. They were able to escape to Italy and settled in Spain where he was helped by the Romanian community to buy an airplane (Spanish Jungmeister) and make his living in the airshow business.



They were married until his death in 1956.
 
Bucker history is very fascinating.  I have only scratched the surface of Prince Cantacuzino’s history. In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the famous Prince:






This is a great eyewitness account of his Jungmeister flying in 1952. The author is unknown but the item is from a report on the King's Cup air race of that year.

The crowd were to enjoy another aerobatic display that was even more appreciated by the watching pilots who understood what was being done and how difficult it was.  The aeroplane was a Bücker Jungmeister – the Pitts Special of its day – and the pilot was a Prince Constantin Cantacuzeno.

{He was a member of the Cantacuzeno dynasty which had ruled Romania for centuries.  In the thirties he flew as Chief Pilot of LARES, the Romanian Air Transport Company.  He was also a keen aerobatic pilot and became National Champion in 1939, flying his Jungmeister.  On the outbreak of war, he joined the Air Force and flew in a squadron equipped with Mk I Hurricanes.  Romania had been ‘absorbed’ by Hitler so their troops went to war against the Russians.
 
By 1943, Cantacuzeno was commander of a squadron equipped with Me 109s and building a tidy score of victories, enough to be awarded the Iron Cross, First Class.  He became ill and spent some months in hospital returning in time to meet the USAAF raids against the oilfields around Ploesti in which he shot down a B-24 Liberator. 
 
In August 1944 Romania decided to stop fighting with the Germans and they opted for an Axis-Exit.  The affronted Germans still had some airfields in Romania and began bombing Bucharest.  Cantacuzeno added three He 111s and an Fw 190 to his score (he ended with 43 confirmed victories, Romania’s highest).
 
With the Russians in control life was becoming difficult.  There were many US airmen PoWs, technically freed but unable to get back to Allied controlled territory i.e. Italy.  Without any authorisation Cantacuzeno secretly had an Me 109G prepared with an extra fuel tank and the radio removed from its compartment in the fuselage behind the wing root.  Into this he squeezed Lt Col. James Gunn who had briefed him on the landing procedures at Foggia.  When they arrived there Cantacuzeno put on his lights and lowered the undercarriage, rocking his wings.  They landed without being fired on.  Cantacuzeno borrowed a screwdriver, opened the little 18” square hatch and produced Gunn.
 
Subsequently, Cantacuzeno was briefed on flying a Mustang and he led a formation of P-51s back to his airfield in Romania. (He couldn’t resist a burst of Mustang aerobatics before landing). They were followed by groups of B-17s, stripped of interior fittings, each of which could cram in 20 ex-PoWs.  700 Americans were rescued that day and the ferrying went on until 1,161 had been evacuated.
 
Cantacuzeno himself stayed in Romania but he was steadily stripped of all his possessions and status.  In 1947 he managed to get away, eventually to Spain where he took a job crop dusting.  After a short spell of bankruptcy he was able to raise enough money to buy one of his beloved Jungmeisters and make a living from display flying, which is how he managed to be in Newcastle in 1952.  It didn’t last long.  Surgery for an ulcer went wrong and he died in 1958, aged just 53}.

.  

The Jungmeister first flew in 1935 and was designed specifically for aerobatics.  With a wingspan of 21 ft 8 ins and a 160 hp engine it displayed ‘astonishing agility’.  The combination of such a  powerful engine in a tiny airframe was unusual for its day and the pilot could make full use of gyroscopic effects to produce manoeuvres that seemed impossible.



(In 1952, colour film was expensive and more expense was added if you wanted an enlargement.  So this is a cheat.  You could buy little tubes of transparent oil paint and delicate stroking with a cotton bud and other little tricks produced this effect).
Cantacuzeno added his own modifications to his Jungmeister.  The rudder was extended to allow him to do his signature manoeuvre.  Note also that much smaller wheels had been fitted.  The usual larger and heavier wheels must have had some adverse effect in one of the manoeuvres. 

The display itself was quite dazzling and the little machine twirled about.  The loops were tight and the ‘slow’ rolls not slow.  The only bit of straight and level flight was a long sideslip with the wings rolled 90° and the nose held up with that enlarged rudder.
 
Finally he approached to land just in front of the crowd, the engine now quietly muttering.  At the last second when no more than 10 feet above the ground, the engine roared, the plane climbed to 50 feet and flick rolled.  Cantacuzeno closed the throttle and gently landed.

 

Fortunately, I’d been warned about this and was able to capture it with my little camera.

Brian Karli. Jan 2025




Bücker/CASA Jungmann 2000

TIGRE G-IV-B, ENHA prop. Upgraded undercarriage including disc brakes. Imperial instrumentation. Trig 8.33 radio and transponder. EGLM/White Waltham based. Extensive spares package including spare engine, prop, fuel tank and workshop equipment. Offers in region £ 85,000.00 for further info contact Pete Cunniff (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)


Dear customers of our Bückershop!

The year is coming to an end and you are probably already waiting for a new calendar for 2025. We have put in a lot of effort again and designed a new calendar. Wonderful photos on 13 pages in landscape format A3 will accompany you through the year.

The printer will deliver the calendar to us by December 18th. Orders can be placed in the Bückershop immediately. This would make it possible to ship before Christmas and the calendar will arrive in time for the holidays.

You can go directly to the 2024 calendar via this link:

https://www.bueckershop.com/index.php/mobil-kategorien/product/view/16/97

If you have any difficulty ordering or paying for the calendar, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will do our best to help.

Our support association would like to thank the photographers who contributed their pictures to this calendar for their support. This was kindly done free of charge and the proceeds from this calendar will therefore go 100% to our museum.

We hope you enjoy the new calendar and have a wonderful Christmas,

with kind regards from Rangsdorf
the Bückershop team of the Bücker-Museum Rangsdorf e.V. support association.


Over the years, I have always admired the red and white CASA 1.131 pitot covers.  I had seen them in several vintage CASA Jungmann photos, but when John LaBarre sent me a color picture of a pitot cover hanging off the strut of a Jungmann in a Spanish Air Force hangar, I said to myself, “I gotta have one of those”.



Here you can see another one:



Well, my lovely wife got tired of hearing me lament about not being able to find an original one, so she offered to fire up her sewing machine and make one.



Since we didn’t have an original to copy, we guessed at the dimensions.  I think we got pretty close.  She said, “Since I have to make you one, maybe I should make more for other Bucker people”.

And so she did.



Here you go everyone - reproduction CASA 1.131 Pitot Tube Covers.  If you want one, send me an email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.    

Since she has a lot of time and material invested, I’m suggesting giving her $85 plus shipping costs.

Happy Bucker flying

Brian

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