Buchon at Dunsfold

Taken at Dunsfold Wings & Wheels Airshow 2017, my personal favourite part of the show was the Spitfire and Hispano Buchon operated by the Aircraft Restoration Company. Each took it’s turn to give chase to the other in this re-enactment of a WW2 dogfight, but perhaps the biggest delight was the new ‘temporary’ paint scheme sported by this ME109 lookalike. 

Painted in the weather desert marking of “Black 8” which was piloted by Leutnant Werner Shroer, a German fighter ace credited with 114 kills, with 6 of those claimed in one single day in September 1942. Rumour has it that the markings will be going back to the previous paint scheme but I do hope this isn’t true – the desert chamo is much prettier and better to photograph as everyone in the press enclosure attested.

"The Buchon is essentially a Rolls-Royce Merlin-engined Messerschmitt Bf109. The Luftwaffe-manned Condor Legion left around 40 Bf109B/E’s for the Spanish Air Force to use upon its return to Germany in 1939. In 1943 the Spanish government agreed a licence production with Messerschmitt to produce 200 Bf109G’s. A total of 25 dismantled airframes were sent to Spain in 1943 as pattern aircraft for future production, although engines, propellers, tailplanes and armament failed to arrive. As the war worsened, Germany was unable to supply the remaining components for the airframes, the technical drawings or appropriate jigs. By late 1944, when neither missing parts nor engines were available from Germany, Hispano Aviacion modified the airframes and tried two different engines, the second French built engine being the more successful." [Read More at: https://www.aircraftrestorationcompany.com/buchon]