(Albatros) D.I @·AIRCRAFTUBE

  • The prototype The prototype
    The prototype
  • Albatros D.I Albatros D.I
    Albatros D.I
  • Prinz Fredrich Karl von Preussen Prinz Fredrich Karl von Preussen
    Prinz Fredrich Karl von Preussen

Albatros D.I

The Albatros D.I was a German fighter aircraft used during World War I. Although its operational career was short, it was the first of the Albatros D types which equipped the bulk of the German and Austrian fighter squadrons (Jagdstaffeln) for the last two years of the war.

Design and development

The D.I was designed by Robert Thelen, R. Schubert and Gnädig, as an answer to the latest Allied fighters, such as the Nieuport XI Bébé and the Airco D.H.2, which had proved superior to the Fokker Eindecker and other early German fighters, and established a general Allied air superiority. It was ordered in June 1916 and introduced into squadron service that August.

The D.I had a semi-monocoque plywood fuselage, consisting of a single-layered outer shell, supported by a minimal internal structure. This was lighter and stronger than the fabric-skinned box-type fuselage then in common use, as well being easier to give an aerodynamically clean shape. At the same time its panelled-plywood skinning, done with mostly four-sided panels of thin plywood over the entire minimal fuselage structure, was less labour-intensive (and therefore less costly to manufacture) than a "true" monocoque structure. The Albatros D.I was powered by either a 110 kW (150 hp) Benz Bz.III or a 120 kW (160 hp) Mercedes D.III six-cylinder water cooled inline engine. The additional power of the Mercedes (Daimler) engine enabled twin fixed Spandau machine-guns to be fitted without any loss in performance.

The D.I had a relatively high wing loading for its time, and was not particularly manoeuvrable. This was compensated by its superior speed and firepower and it quickly proved the best all-round fighter available.

Operational history

A total of 50 pre-series and series D.I aircraft were in service by November 1916, replacing the early Fokker and Halberstadt D types, giving real "teeth" to the Luftstreitkräfte's new Jagdstaffeln (fighter squadrons). Further production of D.Is was not undertaken, however; instead, a reduction in the gap between the upper and lower wing in order to improve the pilot's forward and upward vision resulted in the otherwise identical Albatros D.II,which became Albatros' first major production fighter.

Operators

  • German Empire : Luftstreitkräfte

The Spandau lMG 08 machine gun

A lightened air-cooled version of the original water-cooled rectangular pattern-receiver MG 08 infantry automatic ordnance, the lMG 08, was developed by the Spandau arsenal as a rigidly mounted aircraft machine gun and went into production in 1915, in single-gun mounts, for use on the E.I through the E.III production versions of the Fokker Eindecker. A lower case letter "L" beginning the prefix meant luftgekühlt (air-cooled) rather than Luft (air).

The lMG 08s were later used in pairs by the time of the introduction of the Fokker D.III and Albatros D.I biplane fighters in 1916, as fixed and synchronized cowling guns firing through the propeller. The Parabellum MG14 built by DWM was a lighter (22 lbs) and quite different, air-cooled Maxim system gun with a very high rate of fire (900 rounds/min). It was introduced in 1915, and was, but not without serious problems on occasion (as noted by Otto Parschau), prototyped on Parschau's own A.16/15 Fokker A.III "green machine" monoplane with the Fokker Stangensteuerung gun synchronizer, received back with the synchronized Parabellum by Parschau on May 30, 1915 and first used in quantity as the synchronized forward-firing armament on the five examples of the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker production prototype aircraft, and soon afterwards served as a flexible aircraft observer's gun for rear defense.

The initial model of the air-cooled "Spandau" lMG 08 front-firing cowling machine guns had lost the stocks, grips, and bipods of the infantry MG 08s to adapt it to a fixed, forward-firing mount forward of an aircraft's cockpit, with gun synchronization allowing safe firing through a spinning propeller's arc. The 105 mm diameter cylindrical sheet metal water jacket used for the infantry's MG 08, an important support member for the barrel, was initially over-lightened with cooling slots, with fourteen rows of such slots completely surrounding and running the whole length of the jacket's circumferential sheetmetal.

These alternated between seven rows of nine "oblong" slots, alternating with seven more intervening rows of eight slots and twin round holes fore and aft of the slots apiece. Because of the important physical reinforcement provided by the cooling jacket on the MG 08 series of guns, the excessive slotting of the initial model of the air-cooled lMG 08 — amounting to slightly over 50% of the total area of the cylindrical cooling jacket's original circumferential sheetmetal — rendered the gun as too fragile, to the point of making it impossible to fit the muzzle booster that the water-cooled infantry MG 08 guns could be fitted with.

The later models of lMG 08 air-cooled machine gun variously "tweaked" the amount of slotting of the barrel by reducing the amount of sheet metal removed from it in minor ways through at least two or three trial formats, and eventually in the final versions produced, had the slotting omitted at the extreme ends of the cooling jacket's cylindrical member, with a 13 cm wide area of solid sheet metal at the breech end, and a 5 cm wide solid area at the muzzle end, giving the resultant gun much more rigidity. The lMG 08 also retained unchanged the rectangular rear receiver and breech assembly of the water-cooled MG 08 infantry weapon.

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Source : Article Albatros D.I of Wikipedia ( authors )

Albatros D.I

  • Role : Fighter.
  • Manufacturer : Albatros Flugzeugwerke.
  • Designer : Robert Thelen.
  • Introduction : August 1916.
  • Primary user : Luftstreitkräfte.
  • Number built : 50.

    • Specifications (D.I with Benz engine)

  • Crew : 1.
  • Length : 24 ft 3 in (7.4 m).
  • Height : 9 ft 8 in (2.95 m).
  • Wingspan : 27 ft 11 in (8.5 m).
  • Wing area : 246 sq ft (22.9 m²).
  • Empty weight : 1,426 lb (647 kg).
  • Gross weight : 1,980 lb (898 kg).
  • Maximum speed : 109 mph; 94 kn (175 km/h).
  • Endurance : 1.5 hr.
  • Service ceiling : 16,000 ft (5,000 m).
  • Rate of climb : 550 ft/min (2.8 m/s).
  • Powerplant : One Benz Bz.III 6-cyl. water-cooled in-line piston engine.
  • Power : 150 hp (110 kW).
  • Propellers : 2-bladed wooden fixed pitch.
  • Armament : One forward-firing synchronized 7.92 mm (0.312 in) lMG.

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This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Source : Article Albatros D.I of Wikipedia ( authors )
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