Greetings.
I though I would share soma pictures of the MFI-11 that I
designed and built in 1991-92. I was at the time the Chief
Designer at MFI, as I succeeded Bjorn Andreasson when he
got sick. I attended a fly-in at Celle in 1994. Later that
year I moved to the USA and I sold the aircraft in 1996.
The current owners take really good care of the aircraft
and it looks like new. At present time the aircraft's got
600hrs.
Regards
Håkan Langebro
www.geocities.com/hlangebro/aircraftpics/11_1.jpg
www.geocities.com/hlangebro/aircraftpics/11_2.jpg
www.geocities.com/hlangebro/aircraftpics/11_3.jpg
>From: "Dr. Hubertus Haan" <h.haan@h-haan.de>
>To: <hlangebro@hotmail.com>
>CC: <wilh_fischer@t-online.de>
>Subject: Bo 208 C
>Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 18:33:05 +0200
>
>Thanks, Hakan, for the nice words and the links to the pictures. It is
>always a pleasure for me to get in contact to pilots who are
thousands of
>miles away from "Nabern - Teck" (where the boelkows were build).
Some
>friends from New-Zeeland, Canada and USA found our web-page (having
>Boelkwos).
>
>The MFI 11 looks very nice, especially the front part, which is changed to
>our 208s. There is one man from Sweden who has spare parts and some kits
of
>208 or MFIs, some kits are sold to USA. What parts can we interchange, to
>which degree is the MFI identically to the 208? Also I found a link to a
>MFI-page, which is somewhere on www.boelkow-junior.de.
Personally I have
>never seen a MFI here, but there was one in Hodenhagen/north germany, but
>sold to denmark.
>
>If you like, you are invented to send some stories "form the
old days". We
>do not know very much of Andreasson and how the things went on in 1963 -
>1969 and afterwards with the 208 and the MFI. This would be
interesting
>and
>I would place it on www.boelkow-junior.de.
>
>Thangs again,
>
>Yours,
>
>Hubertus Haan
Well, I wish that I knew a lot more than I do. I am still fairly young (36) so I wasn’t involved in the old days. This is basically what I remember:
Björn design and built the BA-7 in San Diego in 1957. He was a friend with Rudolf Abelin (who is still alive, even though in his 80’s) who was the Manager of Malmö Flygindustri. He convinced Björn that they would put it in production if he came back to Sweden. Björn decided to leave sunny California and moved in 1960 to Malmö in Sweden. The did some re-design on the BA-7 which eventually became the MFI-9 Junior.
Rudolf Abelin who had a lot of connections in Germany, was able to gather some interest from Mülius (spelling) the General manager of Bölkow (MBB) and they decided that MFI would produce the aircraft for the Scandinavian market and Bölkow for the world market.
Production started and MFI produced 70 aircraft up to about 1970 when production was stopped. Production was stopped because the aircraft was now classified as military equipment, since MFI decided to use it in the war against Nigeria in Biafra…..
The military and civilian governmental agencies put an end to the production of the MFI-9 in Sweden due to the aforementioned facts and reasons.
I don’t know much about the production in Germany though.
There were 2 aircraft that was left over from the MFI-9 production though….
These 2 were bought in about 1980 by 2 individuals who assembled and built them. They have registrations SE-XDK and XDM.
The XDK made a landing on a country road, in tail wind, and got off the road and into a ditch where the whole front part of the right side of the fuselage was completely damaged….
He removed all the vital parts from the aircraft and returned it to MFI and “thanks for the loan”, since the agreement was the he would built it and Björn and Rudolf would be able to fly it whenever they wanted…..
It laid in storage for years. I started working for MFI in 1988. I noticed the wreck and the thought started to grow in the back of my head; what can I do with this….?
In 1991 I was ready to start this project. MFI had a Lycoming O-235 engine that had been removed from another project and some other stuff that I wanted. I talked to Mr. Abelin and we decided on a price for the whole deal. My father, Göran Langebro and I working every day during 1 year. He was mostly involved in building where as I was mostly involved in the redesign, stress calc’s, paperwork etc etc, but also of the actual building of the aircraft.
Bare in mind, this was almost a complete wreck when we started, and it took us 1 year, almost to the day, to finish the project.
The changes to the aircraft from the original MFI-9B was:
New engine
New engine mount
New cooling baffle system
New exhaust system
New cowling
New prop and spinner
New cockpit side panels, they were
made of fiberglass composites and are made to “bulge” to give more elbow
room.
New panel and instrumentation
New bucket seats
New interior
New upswept and longer span wing tips
New battery location in the aft part
of the fuselage
Longer span horizontal stabilator tips
with boundary layer fences built in
Modified flight control system
Completely redesigned electrical
system
New weight and balance
New Pilots Operating Handbook
New flight limitation speeds
New empty weight and higher MTOW
New maximum load factor (3.8 instead
of 4.4)
Plans that I had were:
Minimize that cooling drag of the
engine/cowling to gain more speed
Increase the tank volume from 80-110
liter.
Increase the baggage compartment size
An overall drag cleanup to make it
more aerodynamically efficient.
This would all have resulted in a cruise speed of about 120-125ktas. Cruise at this point was about 105-115ktas depending on power settings and altitude.
Flight test began in August 1992 and the initial test pilot was Öyvind Pedersen, and good friend and airline captain.
The only thing that we had to change after the first flight was the elevator and rudder trim, and that was the only the that ever changed…The whole modification including the engine cooling worked out just perfect. I was and still am very proud and happy about this.
He did the initial 5 test flights and
then he trained me in the flying qualities, so I could continue the test
program on my own.
I finished up the 50hrs of flight test
about a year later and now the aircraft was inspected and approved and given
the Airworthiness certificate.
I flew it for another year, and then I
left for Canada and the later for the USA.
I sold the aircraft 1996 and the current owners are very happy with it and the aircraft got a total of 600 hours.