A website for Preserved Aircraft of All Eras
It’s time for a December tradition at Pickled Wings, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Airplane.
Simply put, it’s a gallery of aircraft I’ve photographed through the year that have red noses or a significant amount of red near their nose.
Here’s 2025’s crop of Rudolfs:
Align yourself with Non-Aligned History
Pivka is a small town about an hour and a half by train from the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana. The town is home to an extensive and immersive military history park that is well worth the train ride to visit.
Established in 2006, the park focuses mainly on the period from the lead-up to the Second World War to the establishment of Slovenia as an independent nation in 1991—effectively from just before the German occupation to the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and the end of the Cold War in Europe.
When one thinks of the Cold War, it’s typically in terms of the Eastern and Western blocs, NATO versus the Warsaw Pact, and so on. However, there was also the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a nuanced “third way” that allowed member nations a greater degree of flexibility in trade and domestic development than strict allegiance to either East or West would have permitted. The Park of Military History does an excellent job of presenting the Non-Aligned Movement in context and explaining the former Yugoslavia’s role as a founding nation.
The non-aligned stance of the former Yugoslavia allowed the country to cultivate strong trade relations with Western nations while supporting its domestic industries. That flexibility is reflected in the eclectic nature of the park’s collection. Here you’ll find military machines and equipment from Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, the Soviet Union, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and others—mingling alongside an impressive selection of domestically produced gear.
At that, let’s take a look at the Park of Military History in Pivka:
From the Station to the Park
Almost as soon as you get off the train in Pivka, you’ll find a marked trail leading from the station to the park. Go through the station building, turn right as you exit, and before long you’ll see military bootprints and the international symbol for museums painted on the ground to mark the route.
The walk took me about ten minutes and wasn’t too strenuous, though the trail does have a notable incline, so your time may vary.
The heart of the park is the main building (Komanda), where you pay admission, and three display pavilions, in addition to an outdoor exhibit area. Once I had paid my admission, my first stop was the outdoor display, where the exhibits too large to go indoors are kept.
Among the larger exhibits, you’ll see a German-made steam locomotive from the Second World War. During the war, it was used by the occupying German forces; afterwards, it was given to the former Yugoslavia as a war reparation and played a critical role in rebuilding the nation in the post-war years.
There’s also a fast patrol boat of Italian origin that was used by the Slovenian Maritime Police from 1995 to 2021. You can tour the interior of the boat with a guide, but this must be reserved by email or phone ahead of time.
One outdoor exhibit worth a closer look is the IAR-93 Vultur strike aircraft.
In the 1970s, Yugoslavia and Romania jointly developed this aircraft. The IAR-93 Vultur was the Romanian variant, while the Yugoslav version was known as the J-22 Orao. Although Romania was a member of the Warsaw Pact at the time, it had ceased to be a Soviet satellite by the mid-1960s and thus had the autonomy to partake in such a project freely. Both versions were powered by a pair of British-designed Viper engines built under licence in both Romania and Yugoslavia.
The principal idea behind the aircraft was to provide both creator nations—and others in the Non-Aligned Movement—with a simple, credible combat aircraft that offered an alternative to products from either bloc.
Ultimately, the aircraft wasn’t used outside Romania and Yugoslavia, but it stands as a testament to the benefits of non-alignment in the Cold War—not only for the freedom it gave the two nations to collaborate without external oversight, but also for the flexibility it afforded them in sourcing components from suppliers of their choosing.
Today, most surviving examples are in museums, though a small fleet remains in service with the Serbian Air Force.
Armour and Artillery
Once I’d finished exploring the outdoor displays, I moved on to Pavilions B and C, which stand directly adjacent. These pavilions focus on armour and artillery, covering the Second World War through to the mid-1950s.
Inside, you’ll find vehicles and equipment not only of domestic origin but also from a variety of Allied nations. This diversity reflects the fact that the Yugoslav Partisans were one of the most effective resistance movements of the war and received considerable support from the Allies. You’ll also see German equipment that was captured and used by the Partisans.
Among the highlights: a Soviet T-34 tank sits alongside an American Sherman, a British Bren Gun Carrier, and the domestically designed M-48 mountain gun. Display cabinets feature smaller sidearms, gas masks, and other equipment.
There are also aviation elements here. Pavilion B contains the remains of a Royal Air Force Spitfire Mk IX that was shot down in September 1944 and excavated in 2019. The aircraft was based in Italy and on a mission to attack German ground targets when it was shot down over the outskirts of Ljubljana. The pilot, Sergeant Peter J. Clark, survived and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner.
Pavilion C includes two domestically designed trainer aircraft from the 1950s and 60s, including the SOKO 522. First flown in 1955, it served as the main primary trainer for the Yugoslav Air Force until 1978.
Tito’s Yugoslavia and the Road to Freedom
From Pavilion C, I made my way back through the outdoor display and past the Komanda building toward Pavilion A, which showcases Yugoslavia through the Cold War, its dissolution, and the founding of modern Slovenia in 1991.
The park itself is a piece of history: the buildings and grounds began life as an Italian army barracks in the interwar period. Until 1944, the western section of Slovenia that includes Pivka belonged to the Kingdom of Italy. From 1945 to 1991, the site served as a Yugoslav army barracks. It was eventually given to the municipality of Pivka by the Slovenian military on the condition that it be turned into a museum.
I entered Pavilion A via a lift to the upper level. The first exhibit is a well-organized and immersive timeline that takes you through the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy and the formation of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945 under Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980).
Tito had led the Yugoslav Partisans during the war and envisioned a Communist Yugoslav state. Post-war relations between Tito and Josef Stalin were initially good but soured by 1948, as Tito’s ideas for Yugoslavia’s internal and foreign policies diverged from Soviet and Eastern Bloc interests.
The exhibit then traces the temporary warming of relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the mid-to-late 1950s, followed by Yugoslavia’s emergence as a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961.
As the timeline progresses, it explores the shifts in political power between the Yugoslav republics, as well as the ethnic tensions that led to the Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001). The most critical of these for Slovenia was the Ten-Day War (June–July 1991), in which the Territorial Defence of Slovenia and the Slovenian police successfully drove the Yugoslav army out of Slovenia—paving the way for independence. The exhibit also gives good context on the Territorial Defence organization as a forerunner to today’s Slovenian Armed Forces.
The final section shows photographs and videos from the independence celebrations. The next room cleverly contrasts this with a reconstructed 1991 living room—complete with a black-and-white cathode-ray tube television playing wartime news footage.
Air, Land, and Sea
From the domesticity of the 1991 living room, you step out onto a balcony overlooking the main display hall. Compared to the low-lit and somewhat claustrophobic timeline exhibit, the main hall is bright and spacious, illuminated by both natural and artificial light. I paused to let my eyes adjust before descending to the floor below.
One of the first exhibits you’ll encounter is a Gazelle helicopter. Designed in France but widely used by the Yugoslav military, over 100 Gazelles were licence-built in Yugoslavia. The one on display was Slovenia’s first military aircraft. If you look closely around the Slovenian national markings, you can see where the old Yugoslav insignia were painted over.
Nearby is a line of domestically designed BOV vehicles—Borbeno Oklopno Vozilo (Combat Armoured Vehicle). The BOV has been in production since 1985 and has adapted to a wide variety of roles over the years. The park’s collection includes versions for anti-aircraft operations as well as a police variant for riot control.
In the same section, you’ll find Soviet-made armoured vehicles painted in early Slovenian Armed Forces or Territorial Defence markings.
Other aviation exhibits include a MiG-21 fighter in Yugoslav Air Force markings and an Agusta-Bell AB.212 helicopter of the Slovenian police.
Rounding the corner, you come face to face with one of the park’s star attractions—an Una-class submarine named Zeta.
The Una class was a domestically developed special-operations submarine designed to operate in the northern Adriatic Sea and capable of infiltrating Italian ports. Manned by a crew of four, it could also carry six naval commandos.
Six Una-class submarines were built between 1985 and 1989. Plans for further improved models were abandoned after Yugoslavia’s breakup. Four of the six are known to survive in museums. You can tour the interior of Zeta, but advance reservation is required so a guide can accompany you.
The final section of the hall contains mostly Soviet or other Warsaw Pact vehicles, while above them are two American-designed fighter jets—the Republic F-84G Thunderjet and the North American F-86D Sabre—illustrating again how Yugoslavia’s non-aligned status enabled it to access Western technology.
After finishing in Pavilion A, I returned to the Komanda building to browse the well-stocked souvenir shop. As the park’s restaurant is in the same building, I enjoyed lunch there before heading back to the station for my train to Ljubljana.
Paying a Visit and Learning More
Getting from Ljubljana to Pivka by train is straightforward. I found the Slovenian Railways website easy to use for buying tickets and checking schedules; several direct trains run each day.
If you travel by car, there’s ample parking available, including electric vehicle charging and a parking area for motorhomes.
I was on a schedule the day I visited, so I didn’t have time to see everything. A trail connects the park to remnants of the Alpine Wall—a fortified defensive line Italy built in the 1930s—on nearby Primož Hill. The walk takes about 40 minutes according to the park’s website, but I couldn’t take a later train and still make my evening plans in Ljubljana. I also missed some of the smaller exhibits on the upper floors of the Komanda building.
I spent around three hours visiting the main display pavilions. As Slovenia’s largest military museum, it easily warrants a full day if your schedule allows.
To learn more:
Today I took an afternoon walk around Medlánky airport and noticed a very unusual glider in action: A Letov LF-107 Luňák.
The Luňák is a Czech design from the late 1940s; only 75 were made and a very small handful remain flying.
Here’s few shots from today:
September 20 and 21 of 2025 brought this year’s edition of NATO Days back to Ostrava, in the north-east of the Czech Republic.
It was a nicely varied show, as always, though photography was tricky with the sun creating a lot of backlit pictures.
Here’s some of Saturday’s show through my lens:
Feeding the Flame of Success
The Let aircraft company is one of the younger players in Czech aviation history. Founded in 1936 in Kunovice as a division of the much older Avia company—which itself was then a division of Škoda Works—Let quickly found its place in the industry.
Following the Second World War and Socialist take over of the former Czechoslovakia, Let was nationalised. This allowed the company to become a designer and manufacturer of its own aircraft rather than producing for others.
Let is still based in Kunovice, in the southeast of the Czech Republic. Since 2022, it has been under the ownership of the Prague-based Omnipol Group, a major importer and exporter of defence and aviation products in both the Czech Republic and the former Czechoslovakia.
Despite its relative youth among Czech aircraft manufacturers, Let has given the small nation some of its most successful designs. Chief among them is the L-13 Blaník sailplane.
The L-13 was a resounding success at home and abroad. It was widely exported and over 3,000 were built between 1958 and 1978. This makes it the most-produced sailplane of the post–Second World War era, and one of the most-produced sailplanes in history.
Only a few years after L-13 production ended, momentum grew to create a new and improved version to carry the Blaník legacy forward.
That improved aircraft would take shape as the L-23 Super Blaník, let’s spend some time with it:
Striking Hot Iron
By the mid-1980s, there was strong interest in reviving sailplane production at Kunovice
For Let, it was a matter of staying active in the sailplane business. The company had other aircraft, but the L-13 Blaník had been its only glider design in several years, and production of that type had ended. Given the great success of the L-13, it was certainly in Let’s interest to build on it and maintain its reputation in that sector of aviation.
Other forces pushing for an improved Blaník included Omnipol and Svazarm. At the time, Omnipol held a complete monopoly on the import and export of aircraft in Czechoslovakia. The L-13 had been a highly reliable product for them, generating many satisfied customers, so it was very much in Omnipol’s interest to have an updated version to offer.
Svazarm, which existed from 1951 to 1990, was an organisation that promoted cooperation between the civilian population and the military. It provided military-style training in a number of disciplines, including flight. The L-13 was a major training type within Svazarm, and the organisation also encouraged development of an improved variant.
A Tall Order
Improving on the L-13 Blaník was no easy task. It was an immensely popular aircraft with many advantages.
At its heart, the L-13 was a training glider of primarily metal construction, renowned for its resilience to hard landings and other novice pilot mistakes. It also had a semi-retractable main landing wheel that helped protect the fuselage if a pilot forgot to lower it before landing.
The L-13 was also known for its affordability and cost-effectiveness. As fibreglass and other high-maintenance composite materials became the norm in sailplane construction, a simple, tough, metal design like the Blaník still had strong appeal.
Whatever changes were made, what made the Blaník the Blaník had to be preserved.
In the spring of 1986, a team was assembled to design and produce the improved version. The new variant first flew in May 1988 and entered full production in 1989 as the L-23 Super Blaník.
Building a Better Blaník
As with the L-13 before it, the L-23 was primarily of metal construction and retained the semi-retractable main landing wheel. The main areas of improvement, aside from handling, were ergonomics, safety, and weight reduction. These goals drove substantial redesigns of the tail, forward fuselage, and wings.
Tail redesign
The tail was completely reworked. The vertical fin was swept back, and the horizontal stabiliser was moved from the base of the fin to the top.
This higher position made the stabiliser less vulnerable to damage during rough-field landings. It also allowed the component to be built as a single piece, simplifying both its construction and its attachment to the aircraft.
Another improvement at the tail was replacing the L-13’s metal skid with a swivelling tail wheel, making the aircraft far easier to handle on the ground.
Wing redesign
The L-23’s wing was also substantially changed. Designers deleted the wing flaps, which the L-13 had but were rarely used in practice. This made the L-23 wing lighter and simpler, though the trade-off was reduced aerobatic capability compared to the L-13. However, the modifications improved handling at higher speeds.
The large metal wingtip skids of the L-13 were replaced with much lighter fibreglass structures containing small wheels. Like the tail wheel, these improved ground handling.
Later-production L-23s could also be fitted with optional wing extensions, which improved efficiency and glide performance.
Forward fuselage redesign
Up front, the focus was on pilot comfort and visibility.
The cockpit was slightly roomier than that of the L-13, with improved seating, including a seat that could be ballasted to compensate for lighter pilots.
The canopy and sill were redesigned to extend farther downward than the L-13’s, giving the pilot better outward visibility. Later-production aircraft also featured reduced canopy framing, which improved visibility further.
The canopy was divided into two sections: the front hinged sideways, and the rear hinged upward and backward. This made the sections lighter and easier to manage, and also made entry and exit from the rear seat more convenient.
The Super Blaník’s Place
While the L-23 Super Blaník was every bit as rugged a trainer as the L-13, it never achieved the same production run. About 300 L-23s were built between 1989 and 2007.
A major factor in the smaller number was the fall of socialism in Europe in 1989, which brought financial challenges and ownership changes to Let.
Additionally, by the time the L-23 reached the market, more modern sailplanes were available. The L-23 was a worthy heir to the L-13, but ultimately it was a modification of an older design, and flying clubs often chose newer models when budgets allowed.
Even so, the L-23 has enjoyed popularity with those who fly it, and it has been exported to roughly 30 countries. Among its operators is the United States Air Force Academy, where it is known as the TG-10B Merlin.
The L-23 also gave something back to the Blaník family. In the late 1990s, the concept of an aerobatics trainer within the lineage took shape. The result was the L-13AC, which first flew in July 1997. It inherited some of the L-23’s modifications: its wing was a shortened, modified version of the L-23’s, and it shared the L-23’s forward fuselage, though with a one-piece canopy.
The L-23 Today and Learning More
With about 300 built and exports to some 30 countries, the L-23 remains a workhorse, and many are still flying today.
Since 2014, the type certificates for all Blaník-family aircraft have been held by the Prague-based Blaník Aircraft company. As such, ongoing support remains available to keep the type in the air for years to come.
Nostalgia also plays a role in keeping the Blaník family alive. Many pilots around the world learned to fly in an L-13 or L-23 and hold fond memories of them. Within the sailplane community, these aircraft are very much considered “classics.”
To learn more about the L-23 and its place in the Blaník lineage, a good first stop is this article on the Orlita.net website. It covers the entire aircraft family in detail; the L-23 specific part starts halfway down the page. It’s all in Czech, but responds well to online translators.
This week is the end of an era as the Polish air force retires the last of its Sukhoi Su-22 fleet.
The Su-22 is an attack aircraft produced by the former Soviet Union. It entered service with the Polish air force in 1984.
The retirement of the Polish Su-22 fleet marks the end of Su-22 operations in Europe.
It’s an aircraft I didn’t get a chance to see much of in action. By the time I relocated from Canada to the Czech Republic in 2004, Czech air force Su-22s were in museums.
These are pictures I took of Polish Su-22s at the 2013 and 2022 editions of the AirPower air show in Zeltweg, Austria:
It’s time for some regular housekeeping at Pickled Wings.
I’ve cleaned up the main page this weekend, deleting posts or moving them to the drop-down menus at the top of the page as appropriate.
I’ve also taken the time to update photos in some older articles and review their texts to find areas that need updates or could do with a bit extra polish.
In the past few days, I’ve given the follwing articles image and text updates:
June 21 and 22 of 2025 saw the annual Letecký Den (Air Day) event at Břeclav, Czech Republic take place.
It was a great show, the weather could not have been better and there was a good amount of variety and action to take in.
The show had some of the regular performers as well as some newcomers to keep things fresh
Here’s some of my pictures for the Saturday show:
The Pardubice Aviation Fair is an annual event that takes place in Pardubice, Czech Republic. the 2025 edition of the show took place on June 7 and 8. I attended the June 7 show.
It was a pleasantly varied show with a lot of vintage aircraft with some modern in the mix.
We had scattered rain throughout the day, so photogaraphy was a challenge, but I managed to get some presentable shots.
On May 17 of 2025, the Czech air force base at Čáslav hosted its Day of Open Doors event.
The mostly overcast and windy weather, along with higly variable lighting conditions, made photography a challenge to say the least.
In spite of the challenges, it was a good show and I’m happy I went to it.
Here’s a few images from the day:
Pickled Wings 