Whatever happened to all the OA7 Optica's?

Does anyone have a complete list of the aircraft destroyed when Old Sarum had a hangar fire on 16/01/1987?
Your time and trouble appreciated.

Been asked before and no answer was received!:(

Unfortunately the first 19 or 20 aircraft ( prior to Series 300 ) were found to have been designed according to incorrect fatigue principles and were mandated to be grounded at 2600 flight hours.

I would hope that they wewren’t5 parked & scrapped just for that.
For a GA type, 2600 hours is a fairly long time.
BUT…
not for a trainer or for a police aircraft that might fly several hours a day.
In average GA use, that might be 15-20 years use…

As long as the hourly operating costs weren’t that high, I’d buy one at a knock-down price for a weekend toy.

Does anyone have a complete list of the aircraft destroyed when Old Sarum had a hangar fire on 16/01/1987?
Your time and trouble appreciated.
Be lucky
David

Low and slow in a single engined heli is very risky as well, I prefer to take my chances in a Cessna. With good kit and operations team in the back seats the Islander is an excellent police ops system , it serves with a good number of military/coatguard units in this role and does not have the operating costs as high as a Police twin heli.

AIUI a lot of police pilots flew them the wrong side of the stall after which the still intact airframes were grounded. Can anyone clarify this?

Flying fixed wing low and slow is a dangerous idea all together. You do it when you land, but airfields are designed not to have dangerous turbulence where you are close to the ground.

It would seem there is quite an Optica fan club gathering here abouts
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=79801
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=67944
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=81405

Just hope it helps,
Be lucky
David

It would be good to see more of them around.

Edgley Optica N98DP

Here is a picture taken of N198DP on 13 March, 2010. My wife and I are on the right and the current owners are on the left. They also owned N130DP which was in the movie “SLIPSTREAM” You can see a clip of the movie and other pictures and video at http://www.facebook.com/optica.optica
Thanks, Mike Muench

Looks like Crocodile Dundee between the tail plane and you can just see the thought bubble of the guy looking through the rear cockpit window ‘Where’s the engine?’ :rolleyes:

Hi

Whilst trolling through various shots I took at the 1988 bi centenial air show at RAAF Richmond I noticed these for your interest – My Camera was crap but the shots have historic (Hysteric) value – she was being demonstrated to industry at the time .

Regards
john P

I used to sell equipment to the police and image was always far more important than function.

Moggy

Never thought of that but I’m sure you’re right.
When the A10 Hoddesdon bypass (all 4-5 miles of it) opened in 1973, the local plod promptly bought an MGB GT to police it.

I used to sell equipment to the police and image was always far more important than function. Moggy

…like the matt black Hi-Viz jacket.

Mark

I don’t remember anything being said about the helicopter/aeroplane problems.

M

I think the main helicopter/aeroplane problem is that for the police’s taste it wasn’t a macho helicopter like what they flew in all the Vietnam movies, but a rather effete little aircraft.

I used to sell equipment to the police and image was always far more important than function.

Moggy

As I was wading through a pile of stuff I came across this and as nobody else has posted a pic of one I will, taken at HMS Deadalus air show not to sure of the year but I do remember the approaching thunder storm.
used to love seeing it flying around here

I think this is the one that crashed in the New Forest

PaulC

What we wouldn’t have done for some of these in Vietnam as FAC machines – vulnerable probably but so was a Cessna of whatever variety one was flying. I think it would have made a great machine in this role and these days supporting UAVs would seem a tailor built role for it.

Regards
john P

Two birds with one stone on this thread! David Lockspeiser and I flew Meteors together on 245 Squadron, RAF Horsham St Faith, in the early 50s, and have been good friends ever since. I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with him from Dunsfold on a production test flight in a Hunter 66 (I think), destined for the Indian Air Force, when I was instructing on Vampires at RAF Swinderby, many years ago. I also remember an exciting display he gave in a Hunter 9 at a Farnborough show about the same time.
He had stored his own prototype at Old Sarum while doing some test flying in Singapore, and it was destroyed in the dubious fire.
Since he lives in deepest Surrey, and we in darkest New South Wales, we don’t see as much of each other as we would like, though we did catch up with him a month or so ago on our last visit to UK. Still hale and hearty, he spends a lot of his time on motor rallies in Europe, driving his lovely old Lotus Elite, British Racing Green of course!

Regarding the real subject of this thread, I saw an Optica over Sydney only the other day. A knowlegible gentleman from the Pprune network tells me it is based in Camden, and must be the one referred to by Mark Pilkington. I thought the original Opticas had a Wankel rotory motor, this one apparently has a Lycoming.

Now I remember it. I don’t think it looks too bad, but I always did have weird tastes, must have as I don’t consider the Beverley ugly nor that weird Russian jet biplane ag aircraft (which I can’t remember the name of and can’t be bothered looking through my books)

David Lockspeiser was a pilot for Hawker Siddely and latterly BAC. He flew most of the Hunters from Dunsfold and then moved to Bournemouth where this picture was taken by my father who worked for BAC.

If you go to www.airliners.net and search for G-AVOR there are five pictures of it showing both sides which in those pictures are all white. I seem to remember that the port side was painted in camouflage.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Ian Haskell

Spelling looks good! There was a Ben Lockspeiser who was the Minister of Aircraft production in the war and a David Lockspeiser was a member of 118 Squadron, R.A.F. in 1951.

Getting back to the fire, not only were a whole bunch of the ugly things destroyed but the sole Lockspieser (scuse the spelling) LD-4 was lost.
The LD-4 was a third scale prototype of a cheap to produce cargo aircraft. It re defined the term ugly !!!!
I think that the designer was the test pilot David Lockspieser(??)
I Know that one of you clever chaps will post a picture and correct my spelling!!

Rgds Cking