Originally Posted by
mikeoneflying
I was lucky enough to see an Optica at a airshow-- if I remember rightly the manufacturer had great hopes in the plane for police work in the UK and overseas.
This was dashed after the crash of the Police aircraft being evaluated.
At the time their was all sorts of wild speculation in the press for the reason for the crash -- some even blaming the passenger..
The aircraft was also touted for survey work and traffic management.
I flew the prototype at Farnborough and the pilot, Angus McVitie, handed over to me at about 500ft on climbout . With the engine back at idle and full flap, it showed about 42 kt ias, it was just like a glider with a superb view and when I turned back to Farnborough, I noticed Angus seemed a bit 'wary' when I pushed the nose down and opened the throttle before retracting the flaps. The one which crashed apparently 'lost control' during a similar manouevre.
I uneventfully flew it back to Farnborough and found it was easy to land.