Gray Light Aviation of France have posted images of a brand new Ekolot KR-030 SW Topaz from the Ekolot factory at Krosno in Poland.
Photo courtesy Gray Light Aviation
The aircraft is finished in a white/blue colour scheme and shows the underwing Dept registration 89-XT and radio callsign F-JLBL in the cockpit.
The aircraft is likely to be from production batch 030-13.... or 030-14....
Browsing through my old photos I came across this lovely red Bocian G-DFLL I took in December 2009. I had seen this Bocian many times over the years at both Keevil and also as shown here at The Park - Kingston Deverill.
This glider was built at the SZD factory at Krosno in 1965 with c/n 877 ( F-877 ) as a SZD 9 Bis Bocian 1D - in fact it was the last SZD glider to be built at their Krosno factory ( note that Bocian production continued at SZD Jezow ).
It was delivered new to Finland as OH-336, later becoming OH-KBP. It came to the UK in 1988 taking up the BGA registration BGA 3345 with trigraph "FLL". In September 2009 it moved onto the UK "G" register as G-DFLL with the Bath, Wiltshire and North Dorset Gliding Club at The Park. The registration was cancelled in 2012 with the glider listed as permanently withdrawn from use after 47 years of flying.
At the end of October Ekolot test flew their new version of the Topaz, the Topaz SW. This version features a wing span reduced from the previous standard of 10.52m span to 9.52m. The wing fuel tanks have been removed and placed inside the fuselage.
This allows the wings to be disassembled for easier transport inside a trailer or to store the aircraft in a building. The first flight took place at Krosno airfield in late October 2020 with the aircraft wearing the test registration SP-ZARA.
G-DCEB - the Club also operate this SZD 9 Bis Bocian 1E - the 1E version has a spring loaded nose wheel. G-DCEB is c/n P-433 was built in 1967 at SZD Jezow. It was exported to the UK and became BGA 1474 and then G-DCEB in February 2008.
