Ju 87 Stuka Replica

[eisenbahn9]

I recently ran across an old issue of Popular Mechanics (Jan. 1980) and saw this amazing
photo of a 7/10-scale Ju 87 B. Thought it was worth sharing, given the lack of flyable WWII
German warbirds around. Here's the story on this plane (I'd never heard of it before):

The plane was built in 1977-78 by an engineer named Louis Langhurst from Carriere, Michigan.
It required 8,000 man-hours to complete and was patterned on the full-size Ju 87 B Stuka currently
on display at the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry. The plane is powered by a 220-hp
Lycoming engine (vs. the original Stuka's 1200-hp Jumo 211) and has a top speed of 137mph.

From 1981-1990 it was displayed at the San Diego Aerospace Museum and then sold twice
after that. As of 2003 it was again for sale. I don't know where it currently resides now but
I have since learned that Langhurst may have completed a second Ju 87 B in 1984-85. That
one subsequently crashed in 2000 (with a different owner at the controls). It may have been
repaired.

Does anyone know more about these two aircraft? Where are they now? Has anyone see them
perform before at an airshow?

[brustcan]

Hello! In 1967 when the producers started fliming the movie "The Battle of Britain" they managed to find real aircraft in flying condition. Spitfires, Hurricanes, Bf 109's and Heinkels. The one aircraft they wanted, a Ju 87 Stuka, was not to be found. No flying examples in the world. A lot of money was spent to convert three Percival Protors to look like Ju 87's. The conversions looked the part, but were declared unsafe to fly. Models
were used instead. Too bad the "stuka" you mentioned, wasn't build in 1967, the film company would have probably used it. Cheers brustcan

[Roddoss72]

It is indeed sad that we don't have any original Ju 87's out there in flying condidtion.

Regards Roddoss

[eisenbahn9]

Brustcan,

Thank you for the additional information! I had not heard that before about the Percival Proctors being unsafe to fly but it would explain a discrepancy I have seen mentioned in the scale of the Stuka models used during filming. One source says 1/2 scale, another said 1/4 scale.

Could it be that the Proctors were used for the air-to-air flying sequences while the 1/4 scale models were shown doing the dive-bombing runs and the mid-air collision scene?

The History Channel recently ran an episode of "Battlefield Detectives" covering the Battle of Britain. They intercut quite a few scenes from the movie to illustrate the points they were making about the battle. In one very brief scene, they show what appears to be a head-on view of a Stuka taking off. The wing angle doesn't quite look right for a Stuka but there's definitely a human pilot behind the controls. Could this have been one of the Percival Proctors I wonder?

Below is a photo taken from the April 1970 issue of Air Classics. The caption says this plane was radio-controlled but at 1/2 scale, it was certainly big enough to accomodate a pilot.

[Englander]

Are there any other publications available with info or photos on how they were built, etc.?

This just might interest you?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1967-Radio-Contro ... dZViewItem

[eisenbahn9]

Thanks for the post! I didn't know they built Me 110s too. I suppose they wanted to cover all the possibilities.

[G melinn]

I thought you would be interiested in this post I found. I am looking for one horn/whistle

Here it is it's the other Ju 87 B not the one in Chicago it was made by the same guy. This one goes to air shows

Have read the very interesting comments thus far regarding the STUK sited in Maine. One gentleman was correct. I guess the rest is opinion I own the aircraft which is a 7/10's scale replica of the Ju 87 B2 which was the only STUKA built by Louis Langhurst, completed in 1979 after 8,000 manhours of work. There were one or two other versions, built by others, who were perhaps using Mr. Langhurst's drawings, but I am not sure of that. This STUKA is the only flying version in the world, there being two static actuals in museums in Chicago and Britain. It does have a swastika on the vertical tail assembly and the rest of the pain scheme is the one used by Oberst Hans Ulrich Rudel who was the WWII Luftwaffe's highest decorated pilot. Oberst Rudel flew in my aircraft (N87LL) in November of 1980 and said its characteristics were true to the actual machine. I have used wind-driven sirens on the aircraft but they are not permanently fixed for various reasons including some of the ones mentioned by others in this forum. I have met a number of people who were actually on the receiving end of the STUKA. They seemed to have adjusted to the past and were not antagonistic toward me
preferring to the portrayal of the historical accuracy of the craft to something that is diminished by being politically correct. The actual sirens were activated when the dive brakes were extended when initiating the attack dive. The STUKA was equipped with the "ASKANIA" auto-pilot which retracted the brakes and trimmed for dive recovery in order to allow the pilot to recover from the high "G" forces of the dives. N87LL will be on the Discover Channel Canada in October and then, hopefully, in the U.S. this Fall/Winter, on a show entitiled "The Greatest Ever". Watch for it. N87LL has been in numerous air shows OSHKOSH, opening ceremonies for the D-Day Museum in New Orleans, and a number of Commemorative Air Force events over the years. It was displayed in the San Diego Air and Space Museum for ten years after which it was owned by Mr. Roland Weeks of Biloxi, Miss. I purchased it from him three years ago and brought it to Maine a year ago. It is a very well built aircraft and does have touchy landing tendencies as someone pointed out. But, all in all it is a fine example of what a genius like Mr. Langhurst was capable of. I plan to have it in more shows as time and weather permits

[eisenbahn9]

Thanks for posting this! Some good info, especially that Hans Rudel flew the replica and commented favorably on its similarity to the real Stuka. Can you tell us where you found the original post?

[Ome_Joop]

This might be interesting...
http://www.sonsofdamien.co.uk/BoBPG1.htm

Here is the Proctuka

http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/film/bob/pag1.htm

[phylo_roadking]

The mid-air collision scene is arguably one of the worst clips in the film...and the guts of the divebombing scene has been cut out of most of the edits for television broadcast nowadays, leaving just the shot of a stuka through the antenna wires and one ramming into the huts. IIRC the DVD of the "cinema version" (somewhere in my house there's a strange portal to another dimension peopled by several lost DVDs of the film....)

However - it WAS re-used several times in full in the three-episode documentary on the BoB remarked on earlier, that used a lot of the rushes from the original filming. And is suprisingly convincing...if only because like most "old" film, it's remarkably clean, unfaded and scratch/blemish-free and musical cue-free from not having been "out of the can" too often before being spliced into the documentary

[eisenbahn9]

Ome_Joop:

After seeing the Percival Proctor conversion picture, I'm glad they went with the radio-controlled Stuka models instead! Thanks for adding the "Battle of Britain" film story link. It contains many details I've never seen in print before. Leonard Mosley's book on the film left a lot of gaps in the behind-the-scenes assembling and modification of vintage aircraft for the flying sequences, though at the time they wanted people to think the Stukas were real aircraft and he was constrained from revealing that fact.

[rabbibob]

I was checking my Flickr Stats and I found this post had one higher spot in Google than one of my pictures I took last year and I dropped into read the thread.



With a little bit of online searching, I found the owner and he was very courteous via email on my inquiry concerning the plane. I've never followed up since, however I may make an attempt next summer in hopes of photographing the plane close up.

In any case, it was a beautiful sight to see it flying over the lakes up here in Maine and I was glad I had a camera on me when I heard the engine incoming overhead.

Cheers,
Bob

[phylo_roadking]

That's not a great view of the BoB "Proctuka" There's a much better broadside one in June's Flypast IIRC, and from that quarter it looks FAR better. I'll have to find it again and scan it....

HOWEVER - the film story doesn't end there....

Lat moth Aeroplane published a LOT of previously unseen background stills from the production...including one of a REAL Stuka! On the ground at one of the airfields they used. There has been a persistent rumour that MacHaddie did find one and they DID try to restore it to flying condition....but as we know it was never used - so I presume the attempt failed. However, they DO seem to have got the engine running; although the prop is stationary in the still pic...there's a battery trolley and a fuel container sitting beside the aircraft... I'll have to find that copy again too, the sidebar to the pic IIRC had the provenance of the aircraft and its werk nummer.

[vanir]

I suppose the hardest part about building a true to life 1/1 replica would be sourcing an engine, but surely there'd be one to find somewhere in the Czech Republic? I mean people are still turning up MG151 laying in fields in good comparative condition, and the Czechs had quite a store of Jumo 211 they used in that G-14 rebuild they produced postwar.

I've seen someone build a 3/4 scale flying Zero too, and imho I don't understand why people don't build 1/1 if they're going to go to all that trouble (for the Zero an old PW R1830 would be perfect but even a 9-cyl R1820 would do nicely).

I dunno maybe it's just me.

[phylo_roadking]

I don't know; certainly there are U.S. companies offering 3/4-scale Spitfire kits! At a guess there's a practical size limit on how modern weight-selfbearing composites can replace expensive "period" alloy spar-and-bracing construction???