12/31/2010. Remarks by Doug Duncan: "This gorgeous airplane is a license-built version of the Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann, a 1930s German training plane, often referred to as 'the plane that trained the Luftwaffe' although this particular aircraft was never in the military. Fresh from the factory in Czechoslovakia, it was registered OK-BIF in 1948, in 1959 it was deregistered as it was sold to the USA, where it was registered N707S.

At the time this photo was taken, it was owned and flown in aerobatic exhibitions by none other than Mira Slovak, owner and pilot of the Bell RP-39Q Mr. Mennen. The cowling is a non-standard cowling, as this one is designed to cover a 225 hp Lycoming engine.

The lion on the tail is Mira's salute to his home country, Czechoslovakia, from which he escaped in the 1950s by flying an airliner from Prague to Frankfurt, West Germany. He was granted political asylum in the United States in December of 1953, and went on to fly race planes and hydroplanes throughout the 1950s and 1960s, most notably the hydroplane Tahoe Miss.

If you ever want to see one of these planes being put through its paces, check out the movie The Great Waldo Pepper. (By the way, that isn't a painting error on his plane's side -- that way you can read his name when he flies by the grandstands inverted.)"