Last week MVFK had a visit by new Saab Safir owners from Belgium. Bart Wuyts and his father Herman has bought and restored a Saab 91D Safir. The aircraft was previously owned and operated by Lars De Jounge in the USA. Here is an article about the aircraft when it was operated by Lars.
The aircraft has s/n 91436. It was delivered to Dutch Rijksluchtvaartdienst march 8, 1962. It has since then been registred as PH-RLY, G-BCFV, N91SB and has even during a short time been painted in fake Swedish Air Force Camouflage. In the link there is more history about the aircraft, but only in Swedish.
In the USA the aircraft was registered as Experimental class, but when it was introduced in Belgium it was transferred to normal EASA Annex 2.
Bart and Herman has put a lot of money in restoring the aircraft and it will soon be airborne again. Niklas Eriksson from Västerås will help Bart to get introduced into flying a Safir.
Thomas and I had a nice chat with Bart and Herman and we talked about tips and trick on how to handle the Safir. The handling of the landing gear level at take-off, the risk of mixing up the the flap and gear levels and recommended speeds during landing. This aircraft does not have a throttle level on the left hand side like the Swedish Air Force operated Safir, so there is no need to change hand on the stick during the take-off.
The aircraft will be operated from EBZR – Ostmalle Airfield in Belgium. It is a reserve NATO military air base, but is mostly used by civilian aircraft.
Hopefully we will meet Bart and Herman again at the planned Safir meeting this summer. If the weather is good they can maybe fly to Sweden and show us their aircraft!
MVFK 