RF10

Fournier and René Caillet — the buyer who had rescued the company after the RF9 crisis — pushed ahead with a composite version of the RF9. Wanting to avoid taking on more staff, Caillet subcontracted the airframe's conversion and construction to Aérostructure, a small firm near Bordeaux run by Robert Jacquet.

The completed airframe arrived heavier than planned, but the RF10 flew successfully on 5 March 1981. Five weeks later, during spin testing with the centre of gravity too far aft, the aircraft became unrecoverable and the test pilot had to bail out; the airframe was lost. Two further RF10s, lightened and modified, were built and certified without incident. Fourteen were completed in total, four of which went to the Portuguese Air Force.

French manufacturing costs still couldn't make the type profitable, so the licence was sold on to Aeromot of Porto Alegre, Brazil, which built around 150 as the AMT-100 Ximango — named for a pampas falcon — plus fourteen more as the AMT-200S for the United States Air Force Academy. It's the version of Fournier's formula that ultimately reached the widest audience, decades after the original French company had wound down.