Photographer: Joël GIROIRE

Photographer: Joël GIROIRE

Preserved at the Saint-Yan flying school campus of DGAC, the French CAA. Painted as the school's F-BPNS (c/n 30), this aircraft was actually used by the CEV flight test centre as F-ZVMH. It wears a sticker of APASY, who apparently run a small museum in one of the buildings.

The aircraft still wears the livery and titles it wore when it flew with the French Air Force Display Team Cartouche Doré.

Civil registration carried on a small plate on the tail cone.

Carrying special markings on the fin celebrating the 100th anniversary of Escadrille SPA 173 "Oiseau de paradis" in 2018.

Built as a Let C11 trainer it was one of a large batch of the type acquired by Alain Chapel and Jean Salis from the Egyptian Air Force in 1985. In 1988 it was sold to the USA where it was rebuilt as a Yak-9, registered N9YK and sold to Jean-Marie Garric who replaced the original radial with an Allison V-12. It returned to France in 2003 and is now painted as a Yak-3 in the colours of Marcel Albert the most successful pilot of the Normandy Niemen Squadron, who served from the creation of the group in December 1942 until the end of the war and returned to France with his YaK-3 gifted by Stalin.

The aircraft is officially listed as a Lorentz Stampe DL c/n 01 but is in fact a re-build, (hence the Fox Papa registration), of the wreck of Stampe SV.4A F-BDMI c/n 639 fitted with a Lycoming O-320 engine.

The British registration was cancelled on 14th July 2015 when the aircraft was transferred to the German marks D-EQUP.