Aero A.101

The Aero A.101 was a biplane light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft built in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s.

Design and development

The Aero A.101 was an attempt to improve the Aero A.100 by enlarging it and fitting it with a more powerful engine. However, even with 33% more power, performance was actually inferior, and the Czechoslovak Air Force was not interested in the type. Production did result when 50 were ordered by Spanish Republican forces for use in the Spanish Civil War. Some of these aircraft were captured by Nationalists while en route and used against their original buyers.^[1]

Local demand eventually was forthcoming, and a re-engined version was produced as the Ab.101.

Operators

 Czechoslovakia

• Czechoslovakian Air Force

 Slovakia

• Slovak Air Force (1939-1945)

 Spanish Republic

• Spanish Republican Air Force^[2]

 Spanish State

• Spanish Nationalist Air Force

Specifications (A.101)

Data from ^{[citation needed]}

General characteristics

• Crew: 2
• Length: 12.09 m (39 ft 8 in)
• Wingspan: 16.99 m (55 ft 9 in)
• Height: 3.73 m (12 ft 3 in)
• Wing area: 58.7 m² (632 sq ft)
• Empty weight: 2,578 kg (5,684 lb)
• Gross weight: 4,345 kg (9,579 lb)
• Powerplant: 1 × CKD Praga-Isotta Fraschini Asso 750 W-18 water-cooled piston engine, 738 kW (990 hp)
• Propellers: 2-bladed wooden fixed-pitch propeller

Performance

• Maximum speed: 265 km/h (165 mph, 143 kn)
• Range: 845 km (525 mi, 456 nmi)
• Service ceiling: 5,500 m (18,000 ft)
• Rate of climb: 2.5 m/s (490 ft/min)
• Wing loading: 74 kg/m² (15 lb/sq ft)
• Power/mass: 0.170 kW/kg (0.103 hp/lb)

Armament

• Guns:
  
  • 2× forward-firing 7.92 mm (0.312 in) vz.30 (Česká zbrojovka Strakonice) machine guns
  • 2× 7.92 mm vz.30 (Česká zbrojovka Strakonice) in ring mount for observer
• Bombs: 500 kg (1,100 lb)

See also

Related development

• A.430
• A.100
• A.104

Related lists

• List of bomber aircraft
• List of interwar military aircraft
• List of aircraft of the Spanish Republican Air Force

References

1. La ayuda material a la República Española Archived 2011-03-10 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
2. "Aircraft that took part in the Spanish Civil War". Archived from the original on 2015-02-05. Retrieved 2015-01-10.

Bibliography

• Cerda, Juan Arraez (May 2003). "Les Aero A-101 en Espagne". Avions: Toute L'Aeronautique et Son Histoire... (in French). No. 122. pp. 47–56.
• Green, William (1967). War Planes of the Second World War: Volume Seven - Bombers and Reconnaissance Aircraft. London: Macdonald.
• Kučera, Pavel; Vraný, Jiří (1988). "Monografie: Aero A-101/Ab-101: Část I". Letectví a Kosmonautika (in Czech). Vol. LXIV, no. 18. pp. 710–712. ISSN 0024-1156.
• Kučera, Pavel; Vraný, Jiří (1988). "Monografie: Aero A-101/Ab-101: Část II". Letectví a Kosmonautika (in Czech). Vol. LXIV, no. 19. pp. 750–752. ISSN 0024-1156.
• Kučera, Pavel; Vraný, Jiří (1988). "Monografie: Aero A-101/Ab-101: Část III". Letectví a Kosmonautika (in Czech). Vol. LXIV, no. 19. pp. 789–792. ISSN 0024-1156.

External links

• Media related to Aero A.101 at Wikimedia Commons