Aviation Naval Warfare Land Systems Small Arms Space By Flag By Year By Tag

Anatra D-Series

1916 WORLD WAR 1

History of the Anatra D-Series

The Anatra D was one of the few indigenous Russian aircraft developed for the Russian Imperial Air Force and used during the First World War (1914-1918). The aircraft was used as a two-seat reconnaissance platform and 380 examples were built in the primary and secondary variants shown. The Anatra D was the first original design for the Anatra company - owned by an Italian banker based in Odessa, which started producing local copies of the French Viosin aircraft.

In both designs, the plane is not well remembered.

Anatra D-Series aircraft credited to Elysee Alfred Descamps.

The Anatra D first flew on December 19, 1915, before the October Revolution of 1917, which pulled the Russian Empire out of World War I and plunged it into civil strife. Its design was partly influenced by the German Aviatik biplane series captured early in the conflict, and attempted to inherit some of the series' better characteristics.

Wood and cloth were involved in the design (with some steel tubing and aluminum skins), and a two-cabin biplane wing arrangement was used. The wheeled landing gear was fixed, and the engine driving the two-bladed wooden propeller was conveniently located on the nose.

The two crew members sat side by side in an open-air cockpit inside the board-side fuselage. The tail is conventional - a vertical tail with a low-mounted horizontal plane.

When completed, the type has a wingspan of 40.6 feet, a length of 26.5 feet, and a height of 10.4 feet. Empty weight is 1,905 pounds and gross weight is 2,566 pounds. The armament is centred on 2 x 7.7mm machine guns - one mounted on a fixed forward firing mount (Vickers) operated by the pilot (and synchronised to fire via rotating propeller blades) and the other on a rear gunner's trainable mount/observation (Lewis Gun).

A modest bomb load of 50 kg can also be carried at high altitudes.

The Anatra D entered service in May 1916 and enjoyed a career in the air in the early 1920s. Two main types were produced during this period - the original D-model "Anade" (170 examples) and the improved DS variant "Anasal" (184 examples - the name comes from "Anatra Salmson").

The original 100 hp Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine of the original aircraft proved to be very unreliable, and the design had inherent structural weaknesses and an overall poor construction. The DS model (first flight on July 16, 1916) attempted to ameliorate some of these shortcomings by employing a 150 hp Salmson Canton-Unne water-cooled radial piston engine.

While this helped improve the performance quality to a certain extent, it didn't endear the design to Russian pilots - they were more or less forced to fly death traps in combat conditions.

The basic aircraft design (DS model) can handle a top speed of 80 mph, a top speed of 14,110 feet per hour, and a range of 250 miles, but that's about it. Reliability issues continued, and planes were known to inexplicably crash or disintegrate in mid-airleading to Anatra being one of the most memorable aircraft companies of the Russian Empire of World War I. It continued to operate under the banner of the Soviet Air Force for some time, at least until 1923.

Other global operators became Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia (23 aircraft deployed after the war), Hungary and Poland (5 aircraft deployed after the war).

The DDS is a limited production model with a 160 hp Salmson 9U radial piston engine that further improves performance figures (up to 90 mph). At least one Anatra "Anadis" was completed in 1916 as a promising single-seat fighter, but never entered mass production.

This model was also in combat service during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920.