All Aero

Rene Fournier was a ceramist by trade, and started off as a homebuilder with a design he called the RF 01 Avion Planeur (airplane glider). A single-seat light aircraft/powered sailplane with modified Volkswagen engine, first flown July 6, 1960. The aircraft caught the fancy of someone in the French Government, which provides grants-in aid to projects it considers worthwhile. A second prototype was built, and then Fournier entered into partnership with Antoine d’Assche, who was then producing Jodel two-seaters in a hangar at Gap in the French Alps under the trade name of Alpavia. They produced quite a number of the little airplanes, which were not exactly powered sailplanes but airplanes with an unusually shallow angle of glide; successive improvements brought about the RF4 (the second prototype having been the 2, and the original production version the 3).