One of the consequences of winning the Cold War was getting our hands on some Eastern Bloc hardware. Including some very nice Czech trainers, available on the surplus market. The L-39 is a pretty machine…just the mount to turn heads when you arrive at the local airfield.
And I bet it would be a fantastic ride for an exotic date. Take your selected Unreasonably Attractive Young Lady up for the ride of her life. :-)
Kinda neat.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/40935850 w=400&h=300]
Yes indeed! I would like to lay me some hands on that hardware.
I’m ashamed/proud to admit I bought an L-39 ride from Larry Salganek’s school in Santa Fe (a jet warbird training school – he’s got a MiG too…).
My takeaway was that the systems and stick/rudder were a lot easier than a little piston single, but keeping your brain caught up to the jet was harder. My Grumman Yankee requires some primer squirts, boost pump switch flipping, mixture and throttle knob cycling, etc., to get the prop turning. Starting the L-39 took two switches, some navel gazing, and a check to make sure nothing was on fire.
I also learned that nothing turns cash into noise faster than an axial-flow turbine. Worth every penny.
http://www.parkerprojects.com/l39.htm
I saw one of those, at the last Aviation Day we had at the local airport before the recently-arrived NIMBYs shut that kind of thing down. Lessee, my Dad was still alive, so that would have been some time around ’03 or ’04.
It was marvelous. There was an F4U, and a Mustang, and an Army Grumman Mohawk, and a T-6, and some home-builts, and a T-28, and what I think was a PT-19. There were police security a-holes all around, who looked grumpy and frustrated that they couldn’t be mean to us because we were all behaving properly and co-operatively.
I talked to the guy who owned the L-39, and we discussed model airplanes. He showed me a catalogue of what he considered model airplanes, but I didn’t because they all had radios in them (Free Flight Forever!). I think we parted on good terms.
Well, all good things come to an end, as did that. It came time to leave. The guy and gal who had the T-38 asked me to push on the flap so as to get it rolling without opening the throttle too much and maybe propeller-slicing some folks. I was happy to oblige.
I then went to each airplane and stood behind it as it was started up, so as to get the full sensory experience. I stood behind the Corsair when the guy lit up the Double Wasp, and behind the Mustang when that guy and his wife started up the Merlin.
I also stood behind the L-39 when that was started up, but it was kind of disappointing compared to the drama of starting a big piston engine.
I had a good time.
I almost bought one of those back in 2000 as I was finishing up putting my T-28 together. A friend decided to get into the import business and was travelling to Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Romainia making shady deals on former commie bloc airplanes. He offered to let me in on the initial purchase with my choice of airframes at about $65-85k each depending on times.
I even went so far as to arrange a loan on the T-28 to buy one, when I got cold feet and backed out of the deal. I’m forever grateful that I did. I enjoyed the old oily, noisy radial beast a lot more than ” light the fire, push the go stick, climb to altitude and then what?”
At least with the old 28, I can keep it low and have all the aerobatic fun I can afford at 50 gph instead of 200-300 gph in the jet.
Besides, jets are for kids.
Bob Lutz – the old Marine Pilot/car guy who turned Chrysler around – then when the Germans took it over (and ruined it) – made some big changes at GM – owns one of these.
I like Dan’s description of turbines –
I also learned that nothing turns cash into noise faster than an axial-flow turbine. Worth every penny.
Of course this describes about any airplane these days, even light pistons.
But then I suspect this was true from the 20s.