Fouga CM.170 Magister
The Butterfly
“The trainer with the V-tail and the glider's wings.”
Fouga · military
Fouga started out building gliders, and it shows: the Magister has long, slender wings, a V-shaped butterfly tail and two tiny Marboré turbojets, and it is as gentle as a jet gets. It was the first purpose-built jet trainer to enter service anywhere, and the Patrouille de France flew it for 16 years. Nearly a hundred still fly, which makes it the most common way to own a jet with French Air Force history.
Israeli Magisters went to war in 1967 as improvised ground-attack jets, using their training machine guns and rockets against Egyptian armour.
No other jet has a V-tail and a wing this long. The two engines are buried in the wing roots with the exhausts under the tail, and the canopy sits well forward on a slim nose.
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Butterfly from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
