AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 154 / 179

Plate 154 of 179 · Cold War · Jet trainer

PZL-Mielec TS-11 Iskra bis A

TS-11 Iskra bis A, painted as c/n 1H0408, the Midland Air Museum’s PZL-Mielec TS-11 Iskra bis A, flown by the Polish Air Force as ‘408’, brought to Britain by the Old Flying Machine Company in 1996 and on loan to the museum at Coventry since 2004, where it is displayed as ‘1706’: Poland’s two-seat jet trainer, 33 ft in span, with one turbojet fed by intakes in the wing roots and exhausting beneath a slender tail boom, a straight mid-set wing with tip pods, tandem cockpits under a long canopy and the tailplane carried part-way up the fin, shown standing level on its tricycle undercarriage: gloss white with a sky-blue nose decking, spine and boom top, a blue fin with a white rudder, a red ‘1706’ beneath the front cockpit, a shark mouth on the nose, squadron badges on both sides of the nose, Polish red and white checkerboards on the fin and the boom, and red and white blanks in the intakes, as displayed (the nose badges are simplified, and no photograph shows the wing surfaces, so no wing markings are painted).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as c/n 1H0408, the Midland Air Museum’s PZL-Mielec TS-11 Iskra bis A, flown by the Polish Air Force as ‘408’, brought to Britain by the Old Flying Machine Company in 1996 and on loan to the museum at Coventry since 2004, where it is displayed as ‘1706’: Poland’s two-seat jet trainer, 33 ft in span, with one turbojet fed by intakes in the wing roots and exhausting beneath a slender tail boom, a straight mid-set wing with tip pods, tandem cockpits under a long canopy and the tailplane carried part-way up the fin, shown standing level on its tricycle undercarriage: gloss white with a sky-blue nose decking, spine and boom top, a blue fin with a white rudder, a red ‘1706’ beneath the front cockpit, a shark mouth on the nose, squadron badges on both sides of the nose, Polish red and white checkerboards on the fin and the boom, and red and white blanks in the intakes, as displayed (the nose badges are simplified, and no photograph shows the wing surfaces, so no wing markings are painted). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.1 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the TS-11 Iskra bis A modelled here.

History

The Iskra

In the mid-1950s Poland set out to give its air force a jet trainer of its own design. The work was led by Tadeusz Sołtyk in Warsaw, and his initials gave the aircraft its designation, TS-11; the name Iskra means “spark”. He chose a simple layout that suited pupils: a straight, mid-set wing with intakes in its roots, a single turbojet in the fuselage behind the tandem cockpits, exhausting beneath a slender tail boom, and a tricycle undercarriage that kept the aircraft low and easy to service. The Polish-designed engine was not ready in time, so the first prototype flew on 5 February 1960 with a British Armstrong Siddeley Viper.

In 1961 the Iskra was entered in the competition to choose a standard jet trainer for the Warsaw Pact air forces and lost to the Czechoslovak Aero L-29 Delfín. Poland decided to build it anyway, at the WSK factory at Mielec, and the first production version, the Iskra bis A, began reaching the Polish Air Force in 1963. Polish engines followed: the SO-1 from the mid-1960s and the longer-lived SO-3 from 1969. Later versions added underwing pylons for weapons training, and the bis DF could carry cameras for reconnaissance. Production ended in 1987 after 424 had been built. The only export customer was India, which took 50 in 1975 and more in the 1990s, and flew them at Hakimpet until December 2004.

For almost sixty years the Iskra was where Polish military pilots learnt to fly jets. From 1969 it was also flown by the air force’s aerobatic team, later the Biało-Czerwone Iskry (the “White and Red Sparks”). The last Polish Air Force training sortie in a TS-11 was flown on 9 December 2020, as the Leonardo M-346 Master took over, and the display team gave its final show on 22 August 2021. Many retired Iskras were sold to private owners abroad, and two are in British museums: one at Coventry and G-BXVZ at Manston, which flew from Shoreham as “SP-DOF” between 1998 and 2001.

This airframe

Iskra bis A 1H0408 ‘1706’

1H0408The airframe modelled

Construction number 1H0408 is an Iskra bis A built at Mielec, which served with the Polish Air Force as ‘408’. After it was sold off it was delivered to the Old Flying Machine Company at Duxford in July 1996, was stored at Duxford and Scampton, and came to Coventry in 2002. Since 2004 it has been on loan to the Midland Air Museum at Baginton, where it is displayed as ‘1706’. The model shows it as photographed there: gloss white with a sky-blue nose decking, spine and boom top, a blue fin with a white rudder, a red ‘1706’ beneath the front cockpit, a shark mouth on the nose, squadron badges on each side of the nose, Polish red and white checkerboards on the fin and the boom, red and white intake blanks and white covers over both seats. The nose badges are simplified shapes, and no photograph shows the wing surfaces, so no wing markings are painted.

See it at Midland Air Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Iskra in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 179 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.