Aviatik

Automobil und Aviatik AG was a German aircraft manufacturer during World War I. The company was established at Mülhausen (today in France) in 1910 and soon became one of the country's leading producers of aircraft, relocating to Freiburg in 1914 and establishing a subsidiary in Vienna as Österreichisch-Ungarische Flugzeugfabrik Aviatik. During the war, the company became best known for its reconnaissance aircraft, the B.I and B.II, although the Austro-Hungarian subsidiary also produced a number of its own designs, including fighters such as the D.I

History

The company at first started with the license-production of French aircraft; Hanriot, and Farman, and from 1912, started building their own designs.

Aircraft

References

Aviatik (Berg) D.II

The Aviatik (Berg) D.II, the prototypes of which were known as Aviatik 30.22 and Aviatik 30.38, was an Austro-Hungarian fighter prototype towards the end of the First World War.

Development

The D.II's fuselage was virtually identical to that of the D.I. It was characterised, however, by its short-span cantilever lower wing. Through 1917, 19 D.IIs were built for front-line evaluation. The series 39 aircraft were powered by the 149.14 kW (200 hp) Austro-Daimler 200hp engine and the series 339 aircraft by the 167.78 kW (225 hp) Austro-Daimler 225 hp engine driving a four-bladed Jaray propeller and armed with the usual paired 8 mm (0.315 in) Schwarzlose machine guns. A further prototype, (30.38), was produced by fitting a 149.14 kW (200 hp) Hiero engine in a D.II airframe.

Operational history

The first three production aircraft were tested in November 1917, and seven were evaluated at the front later in that year, showing good promise. However, the decision was made that Aviatik should instead produce the Fokker D.VII, and any plans to continue production of the D.II were halted.

Aviatik (Berg) D.I

The Aviatik (Berg) D.I, was a single-engine, single-seater fighter biplane. It was also known as Berg D.I or the Berg Fighter because it was designed by Dipl. Ing. Julius von Berg, and to distinguish it from the D.I fighter built by the parent Aviatik firm in Germany. The D.I was the first locally designed fighter aircraft of the Austro-Hungarian Air Service (Luftfahrtruppen).

Development

Work on the prototype began in August 1916, while the first flight of the prototype, marked 30.14, took place at 16 October 1916 at Aspern, unfortunately killing the test pilot.

Further modifications were made, and three more prototypes were manufactured, labeled 30.19 (for tests on the ground), 30.20 (for tests in flight) and 30.21 (as a reserve airframe). These prototypes differed from the production aircraft in having a single unsynchronized Schwarzlose machine gun above the top wing, firing over the propeller.

Tests of the modified aircraft were good and the first unit to receive production examples (with two synchronized Schwarzloses, on each side of the cylinders) of the Aviatik D.I was Fluggeschwader I (FLG I, later to be renamed to Flik 101G) on the Divača airfield.