DISCONTINUED HANSA BRANDENBURG B.I

The Hansa-Brandenburg BI was a German training and reconnaissance aircraft in a mixed biplane structure with a fixed undercarriage from the First World War. The drive was provided by a variety of engines, but the most common - especially in the first production batches - was a single Benz Bz.II engine with a capacity of 101 HP. The flight of the prototype took place in 1915 and in the same year mass production began, which led to the creation of about 1,500 machines of this type. The plane did not have the training version of the on-board armament. Hansa-Brandenburg BI was constructed by the later famous air constructor Ernest Heinkel based on the Hansa-Brandenburg D aircraft. The new machine was characterized by considerable ease of piloting, excellent flight stability and decent performance as at the beginning of the First World War. Two versions of the aircraft were quickly developed: a training one with the designation BI and an observation-bomber with the designation CI The differences between the two versions were very small and concerned the shape of the tail, wingspan and the addition of weapons in the CI version German military aviation purchased only small production batches of the Hansa-Brandenburg BI aircraft , on the other hand, Austria-Hungary expressed a lot of interest in it and undertook its license production at the Kuk Fliegerarsenal Flugzeugwerke plant in the city of Fischamend. After World War I, a dozen or so of these aircraft were taken over by the Polish air force, which used them in the Polish-Bolshevik war (1919-1921). In 1919, their production also started at the Military Aviation Works in Kraków and Lviv. In total, about 70 aircraft of this type were built there.