Colomban MC-12 Cri-Cri

Colomban MC-12 Cri-Cri G-BOUT / N120JN (cn 12-0135) was built in 1983-86 by James Nelson of Wisconsin from plans supplied by Colomban. It was registered N120JN on 18 January 1985 and placed on the American Experimental Aircraft Category. It appears little flying was undertaken and the Cri-Cri was shipped to England in June 1988 for a Potters Bar owner who registered it as G-BOUT. However the registration does not seem to have been applied as it appeared at the 1989 Popular Flying Association Rally still as N120JN. After that date the Cri-Cri’s history remains unknown, so it is not certain if it flew again.

N120JN resurfaced in the spring of 2011 when it placed up a tree by the entrance of a builders yard near Dorchester – the owner deciding it could act as a Gate Guard to his yard. He had discovered that it was about to be scrapped and luckily decided that it was worth saving. In the spring of 2016 it was bought by a new owner and moved to Devon for “restoration to fly”!! It later moved to Sussex but the owner decided that restoration was too much of a task and in April 2019 put N120JN for sale on e-bay. It failed to reach its reserve price, so the Bournemouth Aviation Museum stepped in. The Cri-Cri arrived at the Museum in May 2019 for restoration and is displayed with its ‘unused’ British registration.

Despite appearances the Cri-Cri is a real aircraft – not a model. Designed by French engineer Michel Colomban in the early 1970s, the first Cri-Cri flew in July 1973. Colomban thereby achieving his aim of designing and flying the world’s smallest twin engined manned aircraft. Despite its small size the Cri-Cri is aerobatic and the pilot is provided with a cockpit canopy. The downside is that pilots finds the fuel tank situated between their legs! The early Cri-Cris were powered by two 15 hp twin stroke engines as standard, but the later MC-15 was fitted with 18 hp engines. These show their improvement when undertaking aerobatics. As a ‘fun’ aircraft the Cri-Cri had a speed of 185 kmh but limited range. Colomban supplies plans to would be constructors, with an estimated cost of $15,000/17,500 to complete. As well as home interest, Canada, Great Britain and the United States proved popular for CriCri constructors.

In 1997 a modified Cri-Cri – the MC-15J - was flown in France powered by two JET Cobra turbojets which increased the aircraft’s speed by 25 mph. Others have been built since with differing jet engines. Then in 2010 a version with four small electric engines was flown in France, proving faster than the piston engine version, but having much less range. In July 2013 it undertook a crossing of the English Channel.