20/8!

"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse) 08/20/2015 at 17:35 • Filed to: Bölkow, Helicopters, Planelopnik

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Let’s take to the skies to celebrate today. Options present themselves, like the Cessna 208. But let’s have something different.

Meet the Bölkow Bo 208, built in Germany in the 1960s. Not designed by them though. The original plane was the Malmö Flygindustri MFI-9 (yes, they both had umlauts) which came as you might guess from Malmö and was designed by Björn Andreasson (yes, another umlaut. You can never have too many) while he was working for Convair in America. It was a two seat trainer and in the event the Bo 208 was made in much greater numbers than its Swedish parent.

Yes, it does look tiny.

Bölkow went on to have something of a complicated history. Formed after WW2, they were encouraged to merge with Messerschmitt, who made these

The next step was for the new combined company to merge with Blohm + Voss to form MBB who in turn were bought by Daimler to form DASA who later were merged with Aerospatiale and Casa to form EADS who in their turn became Airbus.

Along the way MBB had acquired Focke-Wulf who made this

and Focke-Achgelis who made this (it was the first helicopter to cross the English Channel)

MBB specialised in helicopters, carrying on the work started by Focke-Achgelis. Their last model, the Bo 108, became the Eurocopter EC 135 and is now the Airbus H 135.

coelacanthist > Cé hé sin 08/20/2015 at 19:50

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The “dual controll” single stick looks like it would take some getting used to. I can normally find beauty in any airplane, but this thing is buh tugly...