The
Remarkable
Bücker Bestmann A delight in flight! by
R
ichard Epton is one happy pilot, and he radiates an infectious enthusiasm when he describes his Bücker Bestmann. He’s owned other airplanes, but the Bestmann is something special to him, and not just because it’s the only one actively flying in the United States (one is on display at Fantasy of Flight in Florida), but also because of its classic good looks and excellent performance. “It’s incredibly responsive on a
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Sparky Barnes Sargent
flyby when you waggle the stick. If you do that in a Tiger Moth nothing happens, but do it with a Bücker and it goes knife-edge,” says Epton, his cheerful countenance aglow, adding, “For a 1940s airplane, it was way ahead of its time.”
Brief Bücker History A brief look at the history of Bücker aircraft shows that in the early 1920s Carl Clemens Bücker, a naval aviator who had taken his flying career
to Sweden from Germany, started an aircraft company called Svenska Aero (known today as SAAB). About 10 years later, Bücker moved back to Germany and named his new aircraft company Bücker Flugzeugbau GmbH. In 1933, Anders J. Andersson, his chief engineer, designed and built a two-seat trainer, the BU-131 Jungmann, in less than six months. The small biplane was fully aerobatic and economical to operate and soon went into production for the Luftsportver-