Eugeniusz Pieniazek was an amateur aircraft constructor. In the late 1960s, while working at the Gliding Centre in Leszno, he demonstrated Polish gliders in Sweden and established contacts with Swedish pilots. Upon his return to Poland, he began to be harassed by the Security Service because of these contacts, and therefore decided to leave the People’s Republic of Poland. He had no chance of obtaining a passport and leaving legally, nor did he want to steal an aircraft from an aero club, so he decided to build his own aircraft to escape the country.
The general concept of the aircraft was based on the British single-seat amateur aircraft Turbulent. Modified wings and a cockpit canopy from a wrecked SZD-8 Jaskolka glider, a tail from an SZD-24 Foka glider, a control stick from a Zefir glider, and a Continental A-65 engine and undercarriage from a Piper Cub aircraft were used in the construction. The aircraft was built mainly in Eugeniusz Pieniazek’s flat in a block of flats in Leszno, in a room of 8 square metres. Finished components that did not fit through the staircase were lowered to the ground through the window on ropes. Final assembly took place at the Leszno airfield. The name Kukulka (Cuckoo) was invented by the constructor’s then 7-year-old daughter, Iza. The aircraft was test-flown in spring 1971 and, as the first amateur construction in the People’s Republic of Poland, was registered with the markings SP-PHN. For several months in 1971, Eugeniusz Pieniazek flew the Kukulka around Poland, training 44 pilots on it, including 5 women, among them Pelagia Majewska, Maksymiliana Czmiel-Paszyc and Halina Bulka.
On 13 September 1971, in the morning, Eugeniusz Pieniazek flew the Kukulka from Bielsko-Biala to Krosno. He was supposed to return the same day in the afternoon. After taking off for the return flight to Bielsko, after a few kilometres he turned south, and after a three-hour flight at low altitude over Czechoslovakia and Hungary, in a storm and heavy rain, with an engine threatening to seize at any moment due to low oil pressure, he landed at Subotica in Yugoslavia. In Poland, he was declared missing.
He spent 7 months in Yugoslav prisons (during which time he learned Serbo-Croatian), after which he was allowed to cross the green border into Austria. From there, in May 1972, he made his way to Sweden, where he settled in emigration and received Swedish citizenship (while retaining his Polish one). With the help of Swedish friends, in 1973 he brought his wife and daughter to Sweden (to enable Pieniazek’s wife to travel to Sweden, one of the Swedes married her). In 1973, the Pieniazeks also made a trip to Subotica to bring the Kukulka, which had been left there, to Sweden. The Yugoslavs initially did not want to return it; they ultimately gave it back after Pieniazek paid $1,200 for two years of storing the aircraft at their airfield. (With the money received, they threw a lavish drinking party). The Pieniazeks transported the Kukulka from Yugoslavia to Sweden by towing the fuselage behind a VW Beetle, with the dismounted wings placed on the car roof.
After being brought to Sweden, the Kukulka stood for 17 years in a hangar at the Eskilstuna airfield. In 1990, it was restored to airworthy condition. An engine and undercarriage replacement proved necessary. A Continental A-90 engine and new undercarriage made of fibreglass laminate were fitted. For 3 years, the Kukulka flew in Sweden. The engine proved defective and a new one had to be purchased. In 1993, Eugeniusz Pieniazek transported it to Poland. In 1996, it was re-registered in Poland with the markings SP-FKU. Later, the original markings SP-PHN were restored. In 2005, the TVN television channel produced a docu-drama series “Great Escapes,” devoted to famous escapes from the People’s Republic of Poland. One of the episodes was about Eugeniusz Pieniazek’s escape in the Kukulka.
On 13 September 2005, on the 34th anniversary of the flight to Yugoslavia, Eugeniusz Pieniazek donated the Kukulka to the collection of the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków. Due to weather conditions, the previously planned landing on the runway at the historic Rakowice-Czyzyny airfield, where the Museum is located, was impossible, and the handover ceremony took place at the Kraków Aero Club’s airfield in Pobiednik Wielki. On 25 June 2006, during the 3rd Lesser Poland Aviation Picnic, test pilot Boguslaw Mrozek ferried the aircraft to the Museum.
In the early 1990s, Eugeniusz Pieniazek established chapter no. 991 of the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) in Poland and took up building replicas of the Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann aircraft. He was also the main initiator of the construction of a flying replica of the RWD-5 aircraft. In the early 1990s, he returned to Poland and settled near Krosno; he passed away on 7 February 2020 at the age of 86.
| Wingspan | 8.0 m |
| Length | 5.4 m |
| Takeoff weight | – |
| Maximum speed | 159 km/h |
| Ceiling | 3352 m |
| Range | – |
| Armament | – |
| Engine | Continental A-65 with a power output of 48 kW (65 hp) |
