Then There Was One   

PZL (Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze) was the largest Polish aerospace manufacturer between World Wars I and II.

Between 1928 and 1939, PZL introduced a variety of well-regarded aircraft, most notably the PZL P.11 fighter, the PZL.23 Karas light bomber, and the PZL.37 Los medium bomber.

In the late 1950s, the company designed and built several aircraft. Among the better-known products during this period are the PZL TS-11 Iskra jet trainer and PZL-104 Wilga STOL utility aircraft.

One of PZL’s less successful designs was the PZL-102, designed as a semi-aerobatic two-seat light monoplane. It was first flown on May 21, 1958, and later given the name Kos, Polish for blackbird.

The PZL-102 was an all-metal, low-wing cantilever monoplane with fabric tail control surfaces. It had a fixed tailwheel landing gear, and the prototype featured a nose-mounted 65 hp (48 kW) Narkiewicz WN-1 flat-4 engine. The Kos had an enclosed cockpit for two side by side.

After a number of prototypes, the production aircraft (designated PZL-102B) first flew in October 1959, with Continental C90 engine and changed wing construction. Only 10 were built, primarily because they needed imported engines.

Total Aviation Background

Of these 10, only one is currently in airworthy condition. N800UD (MSN 211) is owned by Anthony Spence and is hangared at General DeWitt Spain Airport (M01) in Memphis, Tennessee.

Spence, 62, has a history at least as interesting as his Kos. He was born in Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe in 1988) in 1962.

“[My] Dad read about EAA in a magazine and wanted to form a chapter in South Africa,”Spence said. “He contacted Paul Poberezy via snail mail in those days in order to start Chapter 322, the first overseas chapter of the EAA. Through this work, he and Paul became friends. I grew up surrounded by vintage and homebuilt airplanes. My Dad owned a DHC-1 Chipmunk at the time, and it was that in which I earned my private license at age 17.

“I was fortunate to learn to fly in a tailwheel airplane, and all the airplanes I’ve owned have had tailwheels. Dad’s first aircraft was an Auster J2, which he owned in Rhodesia in the 1950s. He sold it when he moved to South Africa and rebought in 1988. Then, in the late 1990s, he bought the PZL.”

Spence’s day job is flying a Citation X for a corporate operator, but his road from Chipmunk to Citation is not exactly typical. 

Spence joined the South African Air Force (SAAF) in January 1983, directly out of school, where he learned aircraft maintenance. By this time, he had his private pilot certificate, and he worked as a mechanic during his two years in the SAAF, finishing in December 1984.

Following his military service, he worked as a mechanic while earning his A&P and building hours toward his commercial certificate. Spence noted that the commercial process in South Africa involves six separate written tests, plus a lot of flying.

Not Your Usual Career

Shortly after obtaining his commercial rating, he landed his first professional flying job in February 1992 as a pilot for LAMARCO, a big farming concession company in Mozambique.

His mission, as it turned out, was a harbinger of more exciting days to come. He flew farmers in a Cessna 210 from base camp to the various farmlands because it was too dangerous to drive due to the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) rebels still active from the war.

This temporary job ended in May 1992, but it led to his second flying job. He sprayed Tsetse flies in the Botswana Okavango Delta at night in a Piper PA23-250 Aztec on a seasonal government contract until September 1992. 

In between these flying jobs Spence was still working as an A&P. From September 1992 to September 1996, he was running his own aircraft maintenance company, doing rebuilds of vintage and lighter warbirds. But he says he found himself constantly wanting to get out of the hangar and go flying, which led him to Balmoral Central Contracts, from July 1996 to September 1997.

This brought him to Angola during the civil war, flying a Cessna 208 Caravan and the Beech King Air BE200. He was contracted to the United Nations to fly nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. Flying NGOs around wasn’t always a simple shuttle mission, and more than a couple of times, he returned to base with a plane that was somewhat more ventilated with bullet holes than when he departed. 

“It was always said that after one year of contract flying one must get out and join an airline, or you will go bush crazy,” Spence said. “Well, I tried in October 1997. I joined a domestic airline in South Africa and flew the Dash 8 and CRJ200, but this was not for me, so from November 1998 to April 1999, I was back with Balmoral, contracted to the [United Nations] again. I went back to flying the C208, and later, the King Air BE200 in Sudan based out of Khartoum, and this was all during the Sudanese civil war.

“In April 1999, I found myself back in Angola for the same company, Balmoral, [with the] same contract for the U.N., [until] July 1999. During this time, a remarkably close friend was shot down and killed in Angola in 1999, so there were times when flying was dangerous.”

Never one to sit idle, Spence earned his ATP rating in 2001. 

For the next five years, Spence was shuffled from location to location, including such garden spots as Tbilisi, Georgia, Armenia, and Yerevan, then back to Angola, then back to Sudan. Finally, in February 2004, Balmoral lost its Angola contract, so Spence joined MK Airlines, a freight company flying DC-8s out of the U.K. to Africa and the Middle East. For personal reasons, he said he chose to leave the company.

Spence decided to take a break from flying, so he started up his own maintenance company again in November 2004. But by June 2006, he was ready to get back to flying, so he joined Avnet Air, which by this stage had amalgamated with Balmoral. He was then flying Saab 340s then a SW-4 Merlin, moving miners between Johannesburg and a little place called Moma in Mozambique until October 2007. 

Back into Action

In October 2007, Spence was sent to Iraq and was based in Baghdad. There, he flew the Saab 340 for NGOs between Baghdad and Kuwait City. In March 2008, Balmoral sent him to Afghanistan and, back to flying the B1900 and BE200. He was based in Kabul and Kandahar, flying for the U.S. embassy and European Union Police Mission (EUPOL). He also flew local NGOs all over Afghanistan until October 2009.

At that point, Spence needed a break, so he was back working for himself in maintenance, looking after a flight school in Johannesburg for three years. That’s when Balmoral asked Spence if he would consider going back to Afghanistan, which he did.

Unfortunately, shortly after that, Balmoral lost the contract, so Spence then joined another company, CemAir, out of Johannesburg. He then went to Nigeria to the oil fields in Port Harcourt. There, he flew a B1900, moving oil company personnel between Lagos and Port Harcour, for the rest of 2013.

In 2014, CemAir then sent Spence to Senegal to contract in a CRJ200 for Air Senegal. Then, from January 2015 until February 2016, he was in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, still on the CRJ200. His mission this time was flying oil workers from Juba to oil fields in a place called Palough, because due to the civil war, it was too dangerous to drive.

On paper, this sounded like a safer job than some of his earlier flying experiences. However, there were other hazards.

“Our biggest fear at the time was the Russian airliners operating in the area,” Spence said. “It seemed like they didn’t stick to any rules and just did what they wanted to do. I don’t know whether their planes were equipped with TCAS (traffic alert and collision avoidance system), but it sure got exciting up there.”

America Bound

In 2011, Spence obtained a U.S. green card for his two sons and himself. By 2016, his sons were already settled in America, and Spence had been commuting to his job in Africa.

But in February 2016, he was ready to work in the U.S. permanently. The family-owned PZL-102B and the Auster were disassembled and shipped to Memphis. 

Spence soon landed a position with a Part 135 charter company based in the suburb of Burbank, flying a Challenger 650. Unfortunately, that company went bankrupt in November 2017. In March 2018, he joined XO Jet, another Part 135 Charter company flying the Citation X.

Finally, in June 2019, Spence landed his present Part 91 corporate flight job flying a Citation X for the president/CEO of a prominent electrical utility manufacturing company. On his days off, he can putter around his airplanes. 

Now, About That Kos 

As mentioned, only 10 PZL-102Bs were built.

“As far as we can tell, there are three PZL-102 airframes left in the world,” he said. “There’s one in Warsaw, I believe, in a museum there. There’s also one in Argentina that we believe is in pieces. And there’s our plane, which is flying. It’s a two-seat taildragger with side-by-side seating. To be perfectly honest, I can really say it is probably the worst landing airplane that I’ve ever owned. It is quite underpowered and has a very narrow track undercarriage, so you must wheel it onto the ground.

“It doesn’t like a three-point attitude because it’s got such a big bulbous canopy. When the tail comes down, you lose the airflow over the rudder, and man, you’re dancing on the rudder pedals until you shut down.”

This speaks to Spence’s piloting skills and could be an explanation about why the diminutive plane was not a great success.

Having said that, Spence admits that the PZL is still a lot of fun to fly. 

“It could obviously use a lot more power, but once it gets up in the air and gets going, it flies along quite nicely,” he said. “It doesn’t do much more than 100 mph, but as I said, it’s a fun little plane.”

Spence, who also owns a Yak-50 along with the Auster, has his reasons for why he would choose to fly the PZL instead of the high-performance Yak.

 “I guess if I want to get the adrenaline pumping, I’ll take the Yak up for a spin,” he said. “But sometimes I just want to take a lazy afternoon cruise up and down the Mississippi River and enjoy the skyline of Memphis. It is a one-of-a-kind classic that has been in our family for close to 30 years, so there is the nostalgia factor. The PZL is the fun little airplane to just sort of go sightseeing around the area.”  

This airplane emerged from the PZL factory in 1959, the last of the 10 PZL-102Bs built. There is a lot about the early history of this airframe that Spence does not know. He does know that the airplane somehow ended up in England, and then two pilots flew it from England all the way to South Africa.

It lived in Cape Town for a couple of years and eventually made its way to Eric Guest of Johannesburg. As noted earlier, the Spence family was extremely involved with aviation in South Africa and Guest was a friend. In the late 1990s, Guest lost his medical because of his eyesight.

“Being a family friend, my dad bought the airplane from Guest in 1997 as much to help him out as anything else,” Spence said. “It might be a bit of an ugly duckling in the aviation world, but we kind of fell in love with it once we got it.”

Family Affair

Once the Spences owned this collector’s item, they got to work refurbishing the bird. 

“We didn’t need to do a complete rebuild, but we did make a few relatively minor modifications,” Spence said. “The original wheels and brakes were some odd metric sizes, so we decided to replace them with Cleveland wheels and brakes, which are standard sizes. We also replaced the original wooden propeller with a metal one. Remember that this was essentially a very underpowered airplane operating out of airfields over a mile high. Anything that could be done to improve the performance was greatly appreciated.”

He also pointed out that the PZL performs much better in the Memphis air than it did at Johannesburg’s 5,000-foot altitude.

The Spences also recovered the PZL—and it was a family affair.

He explains that the wing skin is metal from the leading edge to the main spar. From the main spar aft, the wing is covered in fabric, as are the control surfaces. He notes that this is similar to the wing of the de Havilland Chipmunk. 

“I have pictures of both my sons working in the airplane,” Spence said. “My youngest, Justin, was 7 years old at the time, and I’ve got pictures of him spray-painting the wings on that airplane. And Matthew was 10 at the time, and he was heavily involved in the [recovery] of the airplane. So, as I say, it’s become a family heirloom. It will never be sold.”

Good Home

N800UD now resides at General DeWitt Spain Airport (M01) in Memphis. 

“It’s a great little airport, with an active warbird community,” Spence said. “The Commemorative Air Force Delta Blues squadron is based here. We have three T-6s on the field, as well as six Yaks, which might be as many as there are anywhere else in the country. Two Yak 52s, one Yak 52TW, a pair of Yak 50s, and a Yak 55 that my son Justin owns. There’s a Stearman and a PT-19 in another hangar, so it’s a good little group.”

While they do plan to make a couple of airport events and fly-ins throughout the year, a lot of flying together occurs just by showing up and saying, “Let’s go flying!”

But when Anthony Spence wants to fly single ship, it will probably be in his cherished PZL-102B. It has been quite an adventure for both plane and pilot.”