This is a successful and much used German type, made at Johannisthal,
near Berlin; about two hundred of these machines were made in 1913.
The German Government have a great number of Albatross biplanes and
monoplanes (Taube), and also several Albatross waterplanes. There
appear to be four improved Albatross types for this year, two of them
biplanes, one waterplane, and one monoplane (Taube), all with Mercèdes
100 h.p. motors, capable of attaining a maximum speed of 65 to 68
m.p.h. The biplane types are just over 26 feet in length, while the
waterplane and monoplane average 29¼ feet.
The Germans have not favoured rotary engines and have almost
exclusively adopted those with stationary cylinders, but an exception
has been made in the case of the Sommer arrow-shaped biplane.
Another feature of German machines is that they are all, with one
exception, double seated, the extra swiftly dashing scouting monoplane
does not seem to appeal to the German. We find, however, one exception
to the rule: the Argo type of monoplane is a one-seated machine. It
has a span of 9 metres, surface of 15 square metres, and speed of 130
kilometres per hour.
A feature of aviation in Germany during the last few years of peace has
been the night flights. For these, they have made special provision
in the shape of aërial lighthouses, scattered all over the country.
Some of these are electrically lighted, others by acetylene; some
are “Morse” fires; some are fixed, others revolve, and the nature of
the light has a distinct meaning, such as “near is a high tower to
be avoided,” and so on. Germany is alone amongst the nations in her
appreciation of the necessity of aërial lighthouses.
Round Berlin there are six such stations at, respectively: Nauen,
Döberitz, Tegel, Reinickendorf, Linderberg, and Johannisthal; and there
are also aërial lighthouses at the following places:--Königsberg,
Posen, Liegnitz, Dresden, Belgern, Eilvese, Gotha, Weimar,
Schleissheim, Strasbourg, Grosser-Feldberg, Berncastel-Cues, Metz, and
Bonn.
Besides building aircraft on the lighter-than-air principle, Germany
has not been idle in their use during the last few years of peace.
She has German military flying schools, seventeen in number. They are
as follows, arranged alphabetically:--Darmstadt, Döberitz, Freiburg,
Germersheim, Graudenz, Hannover, Güterbog, Köln (Cologne), Königsberg,
Metz, München-Oberschleissheim, München-Oberwiesenfeld, Posen,
Saarbrücken, Schneidemühl, Strasbourg, and Zeithain.
There are three naval flying schools, at Kiel, Danzig, and
Wilhelmshaven, and about three dozen seaplanes, mainly
biplanes--Rumpler, Albatross, Curtiss, etc.
There are also in Germany no less than eighty-eight civilian
aëronautical bodies, many of whom possess flying grounds, and there
must be at least between thirty and forty of these private flying
grounds, in addition to those of the military schools.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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