BOXART STORY

#82185

Avion fatal

The Z-526 was from the very beginning my

“femme fatale”, or rather “avion fatal”. It started

at the age of sixteen, when I first saw the

Z-526F OK-CRA in the hangar of Kladno Aero

Club and got even deeper when Honza Čáp gave

me a ride in it. Four years later I started flying

and towing with this plane, and I won't lie when

I say that I felt like I was flying a Spitfire. And

later, when the OK-ZRB Zlin Z-526AFS aerobatic

special arrived, I felt like they added a Mustang

to my Spitfire. In quotes, of course. As a rational

and sensible twenty-year-old man, it was clear

to me that I would never fly these types ... And

so, for the next few years, I really enjoyed the

Z-526s to the fullest, playing at being a fighter

pilot. With OK-CRA it was mainly tows, with OKZRB, which belonged to Czech Aero Club and

was not so “jealously guarded” by the glider

pilots, I also did occasional navigation flights

or flights just for fun. And from time to time,

I enjoyed aerobatics with OK-ZRD, which was

then used for training of advanced piloting in

dual controls where Z-142 was not enough.

Needless to say, these were mainly the snap

rolls.

Eventually other types came along, either for

aerobatics itself or for paving the way to my

professional flying. And that's where the Z-526

suddenly “didn't fit the concept”. My annual

flying time on the Treners gradually decreased

until I only flew them a few times a season.

And so there came a period when I wasn't so

good with the Z-526. A few years passed, during

which my flying of light aircraft was neglected

by the larger “steel birds”, and I almost thought

24

INFO Eduard

Text: Radim Vojta

Illustration: Adam Tooby

I was done for in that respect. When suddenly

the wheels of history moved on and I became the

owner of a Z-326, which I bought from the Aero

Club Polička. And that was a huge kick-start to

the "second phase" of my life in civil aviation.

With this OK-OTD we visited Berlin Tempelhof,

Dalmatia, Corfu, Italy, Malta, southern France,

even looked across the English Channel. The

combination of a cruise propeller and external

wingtips tanks made her a long-haul aircraft,

although on takeoff she sometimes climbed

like a loaded Wellington to Berlin or an ATR 72

to Košice. And so, after a while, the thought of

getting a Zlin Z-526 came up, because it could

tow, cruise, fly aerobatics or training and that

all with one propeller. There were several

options and offers, until the "fatal" one came

along. I was offered to buy a slightly damaged

one from Poland. I was intrigued. It was

a former OM-VOR from Holíč, Slovakia. The wing

had to be replaced and the fuselage repaired,

but she hadn't flown even a thousand hours, so

she could do aerobatics for a few more years.

The import and overhaul presented me

with two new challenges. To come up with

the registration and the color scheme. The

former was relatively easy, as I am a believer

in following the previously standard key for

assigning markings, so a 1966 aircraft had to

have the first letter “V” and the second “R”, as

that's what the Z-526s used to be assigned. So,

these are not my initials, as many people think

(and as I only realized after the fact). I put the

"C" in there because it's easy to pronounce. The

coloring was a little more fun. It was clear that

it had to follow the "period line", even if not one

hundred percent. In fact, I had been given the

subtle warning that most people who come

up with their own coloring actually mess it up

because they can't imagine how their creation,

made on paper or screen of computer, will look

spatially on a live airplane. And then they stare

rather stupidly when taking their new aircraft

over. So, it's best to go with something that's

already there, or approach a designer. And

since I always liked the Z-526 from the movie

Nebe pro Trenéra (Heaven for Trener), I opted

for the look of the then OK-VRB as a base. I just

used “apple blue” instead of orange like the

OK-OTB had, the lower wing color was pulled

up over the leading edge to the upper surface

like the original OK-SND had in one of its forms,

and I decided to paint the horizontal stabilizer

and elevator in white underneath, because the

connection of colors did not look good in the

horizontal and vertical tail surfaces joint with

fuselage. Then there were a few minor changes

(the canopy frame remained white and the short

black stripes on the engine cowling and rudder

are thinner than on the original) and the new

aircraft was born in the Czech skies.

I took it over at Otrokovice on March 30, 2010

and it serves me faithfully from that time on.

Its ”fur“ is still like new, aviation life added only

a few scratches during hundreds of flying hours,

but brought me a lot of fun! And don´t worry, the

boxart by Adam Tooby is kind of artistic license,

as I am not giving her such a hard time.

October 2023