Before its conversion, the Wilga took off in 400 feet, landed in 280 feet, and stalled at 57mph (92km/h). Like most bush planes, it wasn't optimized for high-altitude flying.

Patey named his airplane "DRACO" from a Latin-derived word meaning dragon or serpent. He re-designed and re-built the Wilga in early 2018 by himself in five months —an amazing feat for one man.

The point being that it’s very much NOT uncommon for 40, 50, 60+ year old aircraft to still be in active use, which makes the claim of the Wilga being banned because of it’s age a bit suspect.

A couple of weeks ago, we did an air-to-air photoshoot with two PZL-104 Wilga 35A aircraft - a legendary Polish utility aircraft that was designed in the 1960s. It is an iconic STOL (Short Take ...

The PZL -104W Wilga — the OG STOL — has since been used by both the US and UK military. ... This model is a long-time favorite bush plane that can accommodate up to nine passengers.

[Mike]’s previous project plane, Draco, was a large turboprop bush plane built around a PZL-104 Wilga. Sadly it was destroyed during an ill-considered take-off in 2019, but [Mike] is already ...

Draco Aircraft is building on the initial conversion of the Polish PZL-104 Wilga light aircraft developed by U.S. entrepreneur Mike Patey. Share. Post. Share. Print. Copy. Email.

An amphibious version of EADS-PZL's PZL-104M Wilga 2000 light aircraft made its debut at an Alaskan general aviation show in Anchorage last month. The Wilga 2000 was fitted with CAP 3000 straight ...