Monday, April 13, 2009

Classic Fighters 2009 #14: Messerschmitt Bf108/Nord 1002 Taifun

The next aircraft in this series is the Messerschmitt Bf 108/Nord 1002 Taifun, ZK-WFI. This aircraft is specifically a Nord 1002 which is a post-war version of the same aircraft.

The Bf 108 was originally designed as a 2 seat touring aircraft in the mid 1930's, but, perhaps very un-surprisingly :-), it was used by the Luftwaffe as a personnel transport and liaison aircraft during the war. What did surprise me is that the RAF impounded 4 of these at the start of World War 2 and used them as communications aircraft - the fastest such aircraft that they had at the time. Ouch.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

the 108 airframe was built in germany and the aircraft was completed in the nord factory in occupied france it has two factory reg 103 and 108 it was captured in belgium at the end of the war. hope this helps

Rodney said...

Thanks Anonymous - that does help!

Anonymous said...

In fact, this aircraft was built in France in 1945 as a Nord 1001 with 6 Q 11 Renault engine and was F-BFRT, then it change for a 6 Q10 engine, become Nord 1002 and was sold in Belgien as OO-NET.
Sold in 1973 in USA, become N108H, Piper change the engine with a Lycoming 0-540, sold in Sudafrka as ZS-WFI and to New Zeland in 1996 as ZK-WFI