Lohner Type AA

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Lohner Type AA
Lohner Type AA fighter aircraft 111.01.jpg
Lohner 10.20 with no vertical fin and all moving rudder.
Role Fighter
National origin Austria-Hungary
Manufacturer Lohner-Werke
DesignerLeopold Bauer
First flight29 December 1916
Introduction5 September 1916. [1]
Number built4

The Lohner Type AA (a.k.a. Lohner 10.20, 10.20A, 10.20B, 111.01, 111.02, 111.03, Lohner Dr.I and Lohner D.I) were a series of prototype fighters built during World War I. The program would eventually be cancelled due to inherent instability concerns of the design. [2]

World War I 1914–1918 global war originating in Europe

World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the resulting 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.

Contents

Design and development

The Lohner 10.20A with lengthened fuselage, twin struts and vertical fin. Lohner Type AA 10.20A fighter airplane.jpg
The Lohner 10.20A with lengthened fuselage, twin struts and vertical fin.
The Lohner 10.20B showing its prominent dorsal fin. Lohner Type AA fighter aircraft.jpg
The Lohner 10.20B showing its prominent dorsal fin.
111.03 with massive dorsal fin. Lohner Type AA 111.03 fighter aircraft.jpg
111.03 with massive dorsal fin.

In 1916 the manufacturing company Lohner-Werke of Vienna was given a contract from the Luftfahrttruppen to design and build a single seat fighter based around the 185 hp (138 kW) Austro-Daimler six-cylinder inline engine. [1]

Lohner-Werke or simply Lohner, was a Viennese luxury coachbuilding firm founded in the 19th century by Jacob Lohner.

Vienna Capital city and state of Austria

Vienna is the federal capital, largest city and one of nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primate city, with a population of about 1.9 million, and its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Until the beginning of the 20th century, it was the largest German-speaking city in the world, and before the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, the city had 2 million inhabitants. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the eastern part of Austria and is close to the borders of Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017 it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger.

Austro-Daimler 6 I-6 piston aircraft engine family

The Austro-Daimler 6 was a series of Austrian six-cylinder water-cooled inline SOHC aero engines first produced in 1910 by the Austro-Daimler company.

Work was begun on the first airframe, serial number 111.01, and on 5 September 1916 the Lohner 10.20 was unveiled at Aspern. [1] It was a single-bay biplane with equal-span wings and I-type struts. The empennage incorporated a conventional horizontal stabilizer with no vertical stabilizer and an abbreviated all-moving rudder. [1] The fuselage was short and deep of laminated wood construction, armed with twin synchronized Schwarzlose machine guns. [3]

Aspern part of Donaustadt, the 22nd district of Vienna

Aspern is part of Donaustadt, the 22nd district of Vienna.

Biplane Airplane wing configuration with two vertically stacked main flying surfaces

A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage over a monoplane, it produces more drag than a similar unbraced or cantilever monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques, better materials and the quest for greater speed made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s.

Wingspan distance from the tip of one limb such as an arm or wing to the tip of the paired limb, or analogically the same measure for airplane wings

The wingspan of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777-200 has a wingspan of 60.93 metres, and a wandering albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of 3.63 metres, the official record for a living bird. The term wingspan, more technically extent, is also used for other winged animals such as pterosaurs, bats, insects, etc., and other fixed-wing aircraft such as ornithopters. In humans, the term wingspan also refers to the arm span, which is distance between the length from one end of an individual's arms to the other when raised parallel to the ground at shoulder height at a 90º angle. Former professional basketball player Manute Bol stands at 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) and owns one of the largest wingspans at 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m).

During taxi trials, insufficient yaw control was reported with a tendency to "swap ends". A larger rudder was installed and the fuselage lengthened from 4.65m (15 ft 3in) to 5.85m (19 ft 2in). [2] The Lohner 10.20 first flew on 29 December 1916 and exhibited poor stability. Further test flights followed and the prototype was severely damaged when it crashed in February 1917. [1]

Aircraft principal axes

An aircraft in flight is free to rotate in three dimensions: yaw, nose left or right about an axis running up and down; pitch, nose up or down about an axis running from wing to wing; and roll, rotation about an axis running from nose to tail. The axes are alternatively designated as vertical, transverse, and longitudinal respectively. These axes move with the vehicle and rotate relative to the Earth along with the craft. These definitions were analogously applied to spacecraft when the first manned spacecraft were designed in the late 1950s.

The fighter was sent back to the Lohner-Werke factory where repairs and extensive modification were completed. Now referred to as the Lohner 10.20A, the fuselage was again lengthened to 6.35m (20 ft 10in), [2] the I type struts were replaced with the more common twin struts with wire braces. The tail was completely redesigned with a fixed vertical fin and an even larger rudder. Flight testing of the 10.20A continued until 6 June 1917, when it was totally destroyed in another crash. [1]

The second fighter prototype built was serial number 111.02, called the 10.20B. Tail surfaces were similar to the 10.20A and a deep dorsal fin was added. The I-type wing struts returned, reinforced by inclined V-struts. Its initial flight was at Aspern on 2 June 1917. [1] In August 1917 the Luftfahrttruppen commandeered 10.02B and official trials continued through October when further development of this airframe ended. [1]

The third airframe built was known only as 111.03. The I-type struts were again dropped in favor of the twin struts with wire braces and in an effort to gain directional stability the dorsal fin became even more pronounced. First flown on 28 June 1917, flight testing continued through October. [1] Due to the lackluster performance, further development was halted and the Luftfahrttruppen assigned Lohner-Werke a licence to produce the Aviatik (Berg) D.I. [1]

A triplane version of the 111.03 was built as the Lohner Dr.I / Type A / 111.04. [3]

Variants

Data from:Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War One [3]

Type A
Company designation for the 111.04 / Dr.I triplane.
Type AA
company designation for a 1916 fighter; four prototypes ordered.
Lohner 10.20
Luftfahrtruppen designation for the first prototype, with single I-section inter-plane struts, first flown on 29 December 1916.
Lohner 10.20A
the first prototype modified with more conventional twin inter-plane struts and longer fuselage, first flight 4 March 1917.
Lohner 10.20B
The second aircraft, which was much revised, reprising the I-section inter-plane struts. The fuselage had a long dorsal fin running from the cockpit back to the fin.
Lohner 111.01
Later Luftfahrtruppen designation for the 10.20A.
Lohner 111.02
Later Luftfahrtruppen designation for the 10.20B.
Lohner 111.03
Luftfahrtruppen designation for the third aircraft, with twin inter-plane struts.
Lohner 111.04
Triplane version of the 111.03, first flown on 7 July 1917.
Lohner D.I
A generic military designation for all of the above
Lohner Dr.I
A generic military designation for the 111.04

Specifications (Type AA / D.I / 111.03)

Data from Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War One, [3] The Complete Book of Fighters [4]

General characteristics

Performance

Armament

See also

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era

Related lists

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 W.Green, G.Swanborough. "Lohner 10.20 Spuckerl / Type AA". flyingmachines.ru. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 "Lohner Type AA". kamov.net. Airplanes and Helicopters. 2014. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Grosz, Peter M.; Haddow, George; Scheiner, Peter (2002) [1993]. Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War One. Boulder: Flying Machine Press. pp. 55–62. ISBN   1 891268 05 8.
  4. Green, William; Swanborough, Gordon (1994). The Complete Book of Fighters. London: Salamander. pp. 351–352. ISBN   1-85833-777-1.