Buchon G-AWHH
Year built
1958
Aircraft
HA-1112-M1L
Base
Sywell Aerodrome
This exact Buchon left the Tablada, Seville production plant in 1958 and was taken on strength with the Ejercito del Aire (Spanish Air Force) with the serial number C.4K-105. It was retired from active service and sold into private hands in 1965 with a civilian registration G-AWHH. This aircraft flew in the famous movie the Battle of Britain in 1968. After filming it was sold to a collector in the USA and went into storage. In 2015 it was sold and shipped to the UK and restored by Air Leasing Ltd. The first flight following restoration took place in June 2018. The aircraft is currently hangared and maintained by Air Leasing Ltd at Sywell Aerodrome, Northampton, UK.
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Hispano HA-1112-M1L Buchon
In 1942, the Spanish government arranged a manufacturing licence with Messerschmitt AG to build the Bf 109G-2, although the DB 605A engines, propellers, instruments and weapons were to be supplied from Germany. This proved impossible as Germany was incapable of meeting its own needs, let alone Spain's, and only 25 airframes (without their tails) and less than half the necessary drawings were actually delivered. Consequently, Hispano Aviación replaced the DB 605A engine with the 1,600 hp HS 89-12Z and the project was renamed Bf 109J by Messerschmitt. The HS 89-12Z engine performed a successful flight in a Bf 109E used as a flying testbed in Barcelona in 1944, and the first HA-1109-J1L made its maiden flight on 2 March 1945 in Seville, using a VDM propeller and lash-up engine mounting. The remaining 24 airframes were flown during 1947–9 with Escher-Wyss props but never became operational.
In May 1951, a developed version, the HA-1112-K1L, improved the Hispano-Suiza, HS 17-12Z engine installation, and carried either one or two 12.7mm Breda machine guns and Pilatus eight-packs of 80mm rockets. Its three-bladed de Havilland Hydromatic propeller earned it the nickname Tripala ("three blades").
It first flew in 1951, and although 200 were planned only 65 were built. The Hispano engine was an upright V12 instead of the inverted V12 Daimler-Benz DB 601 & 605 engines used in the Bf 109 but, being of compact design, it fitted the airframe of the Bf 109 well and was able to credibly represent the Bf 109 in the German 1957 film Der Stern von Afrika (The Star of Africa) about Luftwaffe ace Hans-Joachim Marseille. The original design, starting with the Bf 109F, had an asymmetrical tail-fin aerofoil with a left deflection to counteract the torque from the Daimler-Benz's clockwise rotation. Because this was left unchanged in the Buchón despite the Hispano V12 having a counter-clockwise rotation, the tail and the engine together induced a right swing on takeoff that was hard to counteract.
A second version, the HA-1110-K1L, was a two-place tandem trainer model.
The final variant was the HA-1112-M1L Buchón (Pouter), which is a male dove in Spanish. It first flew on 29 March 1954 with a 1,600 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin 500-45 engine and Rotol propeller, both purchased as surplus from the UK. This engine had a chin intake that altered the lines of the Bf 109's airframe. It was an improvised assembly of outdated components but this was appropriate for the intended purpose of controlling Spanish colonial territories in Africa, where more sophisticated technology was both unnecessary and unavailable in isolated Spain at the time. It carried two 20 mm Hispano-Suiza 404/408 cannons and two Oerlikon or Pilatus eight-packs of 80 mm rockets and remained in service until 27 December 1965.
Due to their longevity, Buchóns have appeared in several war films masquerading as Bf 109Es and Gs. in movies such as Battle of Britain (alongside CASA 2.111 bombers, a Spanish-built version of the Heinkel He 111), Der Stern von Afrika, Memphis Belle, Dunkirk, and The Tuskegee Airmen. Buchons also played the Bf 109's opposition, the Hawker Hurricane, in one scene in the Battle of Britain.
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