Not seen one flying in 20 years!

Was being used last week at Turweston for the annual LAA Test Pilots’ course for both handling assessment and because the bubble nose gives very limited orientation at high angles of attack.

Was talking to one of the lucky course members last weekend, said it was a lot of fun!

The official site for the Optica. 🙂

http://www.aeroelvira.co.uk/index.html

Ominously the latest news was a year ago

There has been a rival product on the market ~ namely the SEABIRD SBL-7-360 Seeker ……

I saw it at Oshkosh 2008 and the chap looking after it said that yes the front section originates from the Gazelle helicopter with a wing / tail and engine grafted on.

The Iraqi’s have had two in military service for observation

More info on the manufacturers website …..

http://www.seabirdaviation.com.au/pages/

Keen observers will have noted the prop clearance with the tail boom is
on the sporty side of close !

I remember seeing the Hampshire Police flying it around over Portsmouth. Strange looking thing.

Ah the good old EA-7 optica, I worked at old sarum as an aircraft grp laminator in the mid 80’s up until the loss of the first one we sold in a crash at ringwood that sadly killed the two police officers on board. I actual not only went up in the prototype I got a bit of stick wiggleing in as well:) and sat in the middle seat you could lean forward and look back at the main wheels gently spinning in the slipstream! it was like flying around in a goldfish bowl! Oh and as to the crash it ended up in a copse of trees after stalling a wing at low altitude and a very high angle of bank and entered an inverted spin that was unrecoverable with the hight in hand. the aircraft was not found to be at fault.

Louie

The official site for the Optica. 🙂

http://www.aeroelvira.co.uk/index.html

I believe Dan Griffiths was involved with the test flying prior to re-certification.

There is some information about G-BOPO here

http://www.optica.co.uk/

Full details of relaunch here from 2008:

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/optica-designer-seeks-manufacturing-partners-to-relaunch-315743/

ARRRRRR !!! not seen ref. to these for a long time.

Always thought these A/C were a good revolutionary design, then as U say, they vanished from sight all of a sudden ,several years ago. The police used them for traffic spotting,etc.Then wasn’t there a bad police Crash in one of these,where it all ended up on a building roof ? and wasn’t there some sort of design fault in these planes ? Anyone able to throw any light on this ?

It would be really good if manufacturers have got that all sorted now and are thinking of maybe re-producing them again, just what this beleagured country needs right now.

Bill T.

The front always reminded me of a tortoise sticking it’s head out of the shell.

Never seemed to flying like it looked like it would, yes truly an amazing machine.

Francis Donaldson displayed it well at Turweston’s Wings and Wheels event last year – it is surprisingly agile and some of the angles had to be seen to be believed!

G-BOPO is flying in the UK and there are supposedly two in the US, two in Australia and two in storage in the UK.

G-BOPO is said to be a demonstrator, presumably to generate interest in new production.

Think there is only one airworthy. This one:- http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodules/ginfo/ginfo_photo.aspx?regmark=G-BOPO&imgname=G-BOPO002&imgtype=jpg

It made an appearance at the LAA Rally Sywell in 2010, where I suspect the photo was taken.

Planemike

There was some talk on this forum about a year ago about restarting production. Wonder what happened to that. Lovely aircraft!