Buccaneer PR10 Plan

The Buccaneer PR10 was Ben's first attempt at making a camera carrying modelwith a view to using it for commercial photography, the PR standing for Photo Reconnaissance. The pictures show the model at Aston Down in the early 1980's when it was flown by Sid King and powered by a Magnum 90 four stroke and the other piccy was taken while flying at the Sywell aerodrome show probably in the same year. Extra points are available for naming the various full size planes, trade stands and maybe even your old car in the car park!

The model was adapted to carry one of Ben's Konica 35mm autowind cameras with the shutter fired by a servo pressing on a remote button.

It did work, sort of, but the amount of time taken to get any pictures far outweighed any fees we were able to charge for them and we had much interest in it but little (if any) revenue. The other problem was the Magnum engine. It stopped. Often for no reason and usually at the worst moment eg just after take off or on the landing approach. It was later replaced by an OS 90 two stroke. Oh Boy! what a difference! The OS ran beautifully straight out the box and never ever played up. Lighter, more powerful, quieter and easier on fuel. Ben carried on with the PR10 for about a year and then he and Sid jointly developed a kind of pod and boom design but trying to compete with larger 'proper' aircraft companies ( one of which was Boeing ! ) made it all very difficult and very time consuming. A later project was another design called the 'OWL' which was a curious looking twin fin design and at some point in it's development Dick Wallinger from Midland Helicopters became involved for a while.

After Ben's untimely passing in 1987 I disposed of all the airframes from the various projects but I still have the complete PR10 which is currently residing in the care of my nephew Chris Challice and we plan to fly it again at some point but it does need another OS 90 of the same type for power.

The plan shows Ben's method of carrying a 35mm camera and it is still a fine flying model if built for camera work or just as a big Buccaneer Standard.