How you make one Delfin out of two (updated)

At Oxford/Kidlington, UK the restoration of an Aero L-29 Delfin to airworthy condition is making progress. It all started when Delfin G-DLFN (c/n 294872) was acquired by its present owner, Chris Bradbury. It had been stored outside at St. Athan for a number of years.

Chris is the owner of Digital Aerospace in Oxford, a company that a.o. performs aircraft maintenance. So he had the trainer transported by road from St. Athan to their hangars at the end of 2024. 

Both the airframe and the plane's engine were extensively inspected by Digital Aerospace. Unfortunately, during the airframe inspection the centre section main spar had multiple points of corrosion. This is very unusual on Soviet aircraft as they are anodised from the factory. It is the result of poor paintwork practices and essentially sanding of the anodised parts.

The amount of corrosion necessitated a drastic next step: replacing the centre section main spar. Unlike most Western jets, such a transplantation are more common practice in Eastern block aircraft and fully approved by the CAA.

As donor airframe a former Romanian Air Force L-29 (c/n 893142, code '23 red') was retrieved in the USA. It is one of around almost two dozen of Romanian Delfins that were sold to the USA some twenty years ago. The plane of choice was N893TX which was imported from Dallas (TX) and arrived at Oxford by container on 28 October 2025.

Despite its somewhat 'scrappy' exterior, '23' turned out to be in excellent original condition, still as a result of its thorough maintenance in the Romanian Air Force. The plane had not only been taken excellent care of, all the official documents were still present.

All in all, the condition of '23' being so much better, Bradbury changed his plans and this Delfin will be restored to airworthiness. It will receive the cockpit section of G-DLFN after an update with a Garmin unit. The cockpit of '23' is still 100% original and the owner thinks it is a pitty to spoil it.  So this is how a potential donor becomes a receiver itself!

The good news is that the overhaul of the Motorlet M701 jet engine for the Delfin to fly has almost been finished. As one of very few companies Digital Aerospace has a manufacturer's permit to perform Motorlet overhauls, from strip-down and inspection to hot-section refurbishment and preservation. The company is also certified to work on various Rolls Royce jet engines (Avon, Viper, Nene) and Turbomeca Marboré II (Fouga).

Hopefully we can see the Delfin back in the air someday in 2026!

The 1972 built G-DLFN has seen a long list of owners, starting with the Russian Air Force (code remains unknown) and then to Estonia as ES-YLE. Flying as a civilian plane it was even intercepted by a Russian Sukhoi Su-27!

It was sold to the UK in 1998 and taken up in the British civil aviation register for the first time on 28 May of that year. One of the more widely known owners was the German pilot Walter Eichhorn, who flew the Delfin in the years 2005 to 2008(?) during a certain period even with the Russian registration RA-3413K. It later became G-DLFN again. Current owner Chris Bradbury is the seventh owner in the row.

Source: personal conversation with Chris Bradbury

Photos of L-29 '23' : Alan Kilham. Photo of G-DLFN taken at North Weald on 10 July 2004, shortly after the restoration : Gert Jan Mentink