Lohner E (1913)

The Lohner E was an Austro-Hungarian reconnaissance flying boat of World War I. It was the first engaged in 1914, with “E” standing for Igo Etrich, one of Lohner’s engineers in charge of the project. This conventional design featured slight sweepback, pusher engine in the interplane gap and crew of two seated side by side in the open cockpit, one pilot and one observer. The aircraft was unarmed, lacked speed and agility, and was soon recognized as underpowered. After 40 were made, Lohner moved towards the more powerful L.

General Context

The beginnings of the Austro-Hungarian Naval Air Arm were dictated very much by the conditions encountered in the Adriatic, which were particularly adapted to seaplanes, with pristine and mostly calm waters, and sparkling weather most of the year. The rocky coast was jagged with well usable sites with covered beaches, perfect for small local seaplane bases as well. In this game, however, the first belligerent to understand the game was Austria-Hungary. It developed already from 1912 a dynamic, if not small aircraft industry, and a few seaplanes were already built, but without a military application in mind.

First off, there was already an Austro-Hungarian Naval Air Force before even World War I started. The idea was to use aircraft as reconnaissance aircraft and for artillery spotting for the fleet. With time, other missions developed like defending against enemy aircraft, airships, and later submarines, spotting and destroying minefields at sea, or attacking infrastructure in Italy, providing aerial support to the Isonzo Army.

The Austro-Hungarian naval aviation was notably the first to shoot down of an Allied airship and first to sink a submarine from the air. Corvette Captain Müller von Thomamühl (famous for other reasons like his revolutionary Versuchgleitsboote was the first to test torpedo launches from sea-borne aircraft, in line with the invention and development of torpedoes in Austria-Hungary as well decades prior. Aces were not long in coming like Lt. Gottfried von Banfield, multiplying missions from Trieste with flying boats, braving fighters despite its inherent limitations in manoeuvrability and speed. He even claimed c20 victories, making him the K.u.K. Seefliegerkorps’s top ace, albeit with 9 confirmed postwar, being ranked 15th in Austro-Hungarian aces.

The start of the K.u.K. Seefliegerkorps in 1911 could only count on small scale workshops at the time. There were enthusiastic engineers or just less skills craftsmen so production was very limited at best, with a lot of trials and errors. The first seaplanes in serviced were four French Donnet-Leveque models (Numbered 8, 10, 11 and 12) and a single Curtiss-Farman as N°9. It was Lohner, based in Vienna, that really started the efforts to create a mature seaplane design fit for the needs of the Navy. Meanwhile, pilots lackes naval air facilities and instead treained at the Wiener Neustadt Army Aviation School, also near Vienna.

Naval Air pilots did not enter WWI without any experience still. By April-May 1913, three flying boats took part in the international blockade when the state of Albania was created from the Ottoman Empire in the first Balkan war. It was to force the Serbs to withdraw. In 1913 pilots started to write also procedure for night flight and experimented with early radios.

Development

About Lohner

Lohner-Werke was created originally in Vienna in 1821 and was specialized in luxury horse-drawn carriages. In 1886, Ludwig Lohner (1858-1925), son of the former, succeeded his retired father and by 1892, received the title of Purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Court of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, becoming its largest manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles. In 1897 he recruited the young Austro-Hungarian inventor Ferdinand Porsche, aged 22, which later would create his own company in Germany, a character which needs no introduction.

From there, Lohner started to manufacture automobiles, notably the world’s first hybrid ones, combining classic petrol engine and electric batteries thanks to Porsche’s genius, but this was not profitable due to the immaturity of batteries at the time. Porsche later left Lohner for Austro-Daimler. Lohner diversified in niche vehicles, trying electric public transport vehicles such as metros, trams, trolleybuses, fire trucks, all in Vienna but also exported to Berlin, Frankfurt or London.

In 1909, the Empire looked at the creation of its own Army aviation corps and Loghner was contracted to create a fleet of 36 Etrich Taube aircraft under licence from 1909. It largely contributed to the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Troops and the Luftstreitkräfte until 1918. Lohner also produced flying boats (see below) and a domestic model, the Lohner Pfeilflieger. In 1918, the company was the most important aircraft manufacturer in the Empire, with 685 land and sea aircraft under its belt. Under the Armistice of Villa Giusti on November 3, 1918 and Treaty of Saint-Germain, the company was banned from aircraft construction. The activity changed again for scooters and motorbikes in the interwar and beyond, until absorbed by the Canadian Bombardier in 1970…

Lohner Flying Boats

The first seaplane model manufactured in Austria by Lohner was the French Donnet-Leveque flying boat from 1912. Based on this experience, the design team (Igo Etrich, Josef Mickl, Karl Paulal) developed the “E” flying boats (named after the team leader). At first a series of 28 were built by Lohner from its first flight on November 10, 1913. This was essentially an adapted copy of the Donnet-Leveque. The first series of five were completed by January 1914. By late November, one tested the installation of a machine gun (N°17) a change as the crews only until then had carbines and pistols to face Serbian, and later Italian aviation. This first model had a modest output and performances were sufficient for reconnaissance, certainly not for anything else.

Even during the construction of the Lohner “E”, designers were thinking on a new flying boat, of which the first was commissioned in November 1914. It revolved around a much more powerful engine. From 1915, the new Lohner L flying boat was indeed very successful. It was so fast and agile it was armed, and could act as fighter-reconnaissance model. This model was so successful that one was captured and copied by Macchi, creating the first series of Italian military flying boats, Macchi 3 and 5. In 1916, an order was placed to Lohner for large flying boats with a three-person crew and capable of carrying bombs or a torpedo. However, it did not prove successful, due to its engines.

By 1916, Lohner L managed to install absolute air supremacy over the Adriatic,until Italy caught up. The Navy also obtained Friedrichshafen FF33H and Hansa-Brandenburg NW floatplanes from Germany, but supplies were limited, so it was hoped to create a domestic equivalent by late 1916, the K-type flying boats, with 82 built, 29 still in operation by October 1918. At 140 km/h, they were fast and even usable as fighters. They could also carry 200 kg of bombs.

But the company failed to produce a dedicated fighter to defend the main naval base at Pola so six Fokker E IIIs were purchased and arrived by August 1916, armed with local Schwarzlose MG08 machine guns. Still in 1917 was developed at last a rival to the excellent Macchi M5, the Lohner A11 fighter, armed with two machine guns and capable of 180 km/h. But they were not produced. The base instead accepted 24 Hansa Brandenburg CC (designed by Ernst Heinkel). The Phoenix D.I joined this mix of fighters and replaced in 1918 the worn out E-IIIs.

In short

The Lohner E (this code was used by the navy, the factory code was Lohner M) was the first seaplane from the Vienna Lohner-Werke. Its designs were made by engineers Karl Paulal, Igo Etrich and Josef Mickl, and in contrast to the float-based solution, the flying boat form that had proven more successful on the Adriatic was chosen. It was a biplane, its wings were swept slightly backwards and the upper wing was larger than the lower one. Their structure was made of wood and covered with varnished canvas. The two wings were connected by four slightly forward-sloping struts. At the ends of the lower wings, wide, teardrop-shaped floats protected against overturning. The water-cooled, 85 hp Hiero engine was placed above and behind the two-person cockpit and drove a two-bladed pusher propeller. The control surfaces were mounted on a lattice support, raised at the end of the fuselage.

The first, designated E.16, made its test flight on 10 November 1913. Its series was coded E in honour of Igo Etrich and 5 prototypes were built. Later series were equipped with 100 hp Mercedes or Le Rhone rotary engines. At the request of ace pilot Gottfried von Banfield, a single-seat fighter version of the type (called L.16) was also built. It was equipped with a 145 hp Hiero engine, the observer’s seat was removed, and it was armed with two fixed forward-facing machine guns. Banfield achieved eight aerial victories with it, but it was destroyed in an accident in November 1916. It led to no series. As for production, when the model was superseded in 1915 by the Lohner L, far more powerful and faster, most sources agrees that 40 Lohner E were manufactured.

General design

The fuselage was made in agglomerated wood, assembled by heat and using glue, with a slender, 10.5 m fuselage starting with a large nose for two seats in tandem behind a split windscreen, for the pilot and an observer. So the flight commands were only on one side. There was no radio, and the observer just used flags in a preset configuration when a spotter was present to report the information gathered at long distance. In some cases, a capsule with a message (mostly nature of the targets, direction and coordinates) were dropped.

This two-bay biplane was a sequiplane, with a larger upper wing span, of 13 m (upper wing) 8.4 m (lower wing) for a total wing area of 31 m². The wooden fuselage was compartmented to avoid any puncture flooding the hull, and was shaped like a boat, with a tadpole like shape seen from above, large nose for stability and thinner aft section up to the tail. The fuselage measured 9.2 m for a height of 3.1 m. Being almost entirely made of wood, it was light, with an empty weight of just 580 kg and a takeoff weight, with the petrol tank full and crew on board, of 900 kg.

Top speed was unimpressive with its 85 hp four-cylinder in-line, water-cooled Hiero engine, at 90 km/h. It was also anemic and needed 18 minutes to climb to just 1000 meters. Range was 500 km, so just enough to cross a section of the Adriatic and back. It was normally unarmed, albeit most states gives a bomb armament of 150 kg i the shape of hand-held bomblets.

The base reconnaissance model was declined into a fighter, as the need arose, called the L.16. It was shorter in general dimensions, and was powered by a more impressive 145 hp six-cylinder Hiero for a top speed of 140 km/h, a climb rate divided by three and in addition to a modified, narrower cockpit for a single pilot, it was armed with two 8 mm 1907/12 M Schwarzlose machine guns. Albeit production was not ordered, it led to the improved Lohner M (factory code) in reality the model L, which drew all the right lessons from the prototype L.16 and made for an outstanding flying boat.

The Lohner E in action

The Lohner E was introduced into air units of the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine, operating as an air reconnaissance aircraft, in support of ground operations of the Imperial Royal Army during the Serbian Campaign. After the decision of the Kingdom of Italy to side with the Entente from 24 May 1915, units deployed on the naval stations on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, from Trieste to Dalmatia, operated to counter possible incursions by the Regia Marina. By 1916, the surviving Lohner E were relegated to training and other secondary tasks. The Lohner L replaced it in all units.

Gallery

Illustration of the Lohner E, note 1/72 scale.

Lohner E (‘E17’) at the factory in 1914

Technical drawing (cc)

Type M(E) deployed in September 1914 against the Serbs

Lohner L.16 prototype fighter

Read More/Src

Books

World Aircraft Information Files. London: Bright Star Publishing, pp. File 900 Sheet 20.
Angelucci, Enzo. The Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft, 1914-1980. San Diego. Military Press, 1983.
Taylor, Michael J. H. Jane’s Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions, 1989.
Tucker, Spencer. The Encyclopedia of World War I. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2005.

Links

doppeladler.com
flyingmachines.ru profiles
en.wikipedia.org Lohner M
theaerodrome.com
bromleyhistoricaltimes.co.uk
it.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org

Model Kits

scalemates.com