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Schutte-Lanz D.I

1915 WORLD WAR 1 X-PLANE

Schutte-Lanz D.I History

The Luftwaffe played a vital role in World War I (1914-1918), and all major global players invested heavily in newly discovered weapons of war. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of available types for the Reich, and this inventory includes classic designs, "one-offs" and special models for specific characters on the battlefield. One of the lesser-known contributors to the German cause is Schutte-Lanz, a company best remembered for its involvement in rigid airships.

Founded in 1909, the company also designs, develops and manufactures a range of fighter jets.

The line started with the Schutte-Lanz D.I designed by W. Hillmann and Walter Stein. It has a traditional layout and structure, the latter featuring a fabric-covered wooden substructure. The biplane wings are combined in a staggered fashion with individual bays formed by parallel struts in the game. The single-seat open-air cockpit is located behind the nose engine.

The tail shows a small-scale vertical fin with a low horizontal plane. Like other aircraft of the time, a tail-tow landing gear was used, which rolled on the main legs and was fixed in flight. In several ways, the design was influenced by the popular British Sopwith tabloid.

Power comes from an air-cooled Oberursel U.0 7-cylinder rotary 80 hp engine that drives a twin-blade propeller on the nose. The engine is a local copy of the French-made Gnome Rhone 7 rotary engine, which reaches a top speed of 84 mph.

Structurally, the aircraft has a length of 17.8 feet and a wingspan of 24.6 feet.

The D.I is said to represent Germany's first true biplane fighter when it first flew in 1915. Until then, monoplanes were king of the sky, as authorities didn't sell the concept of a multi-plane platform - mostly because visibility from the cockpit under the double-deck wings was greatly compromised.

Interestingly, all of this changed quickly as the war progressed, as biplanes, triplanes, and even quadcopters gained more favor and popularity than earlier monoplanes.

Despite this, D.I was tested in 1915, but failed to impress the authorities. The aircraft underwent some modifications to become the D.II, but this design appears to have had a smaller impact. Only one D.I completed and flew.