__NOTOC__ The Albatros L 65 was a German two-seat reconnaissance fighter

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

first flown in 1925.

Design and development

Under the Treaty of Versailles, military aircraft production was restricted in Germany, so Albatros Flugzeugwerke established a subsidiary to build the L 65 in

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. This company was named Allgemeine Flug-Gesellschaft (A.F.G.) Memel, hence the L 65 was also known as the Memel A.F.G.1 (''Memel'' being the German name for the city of Klaipeda). The L 65 had a single-bay, staggered

configuration and was constructed of wood with a

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

skin. The wings were braced by interplane I-struts of broad aerofoil cross-section. Two prototypes were built, the first powered by a 340 kW (450 hp) water-cooled 12-cylinder "broad-arrow" Napier Lion engine; the second had its first flight in 1926 and had a 421 kW (565 hp) version of the Lion. The second prototype underwent evaluation by the '' Reichswehr'' to equip the clandestine training school at Lipetsk, but the

Heinkel HD 17 The Heinkel HD 17 was a military reconnaissance aircraft produced in Germany in the late 1920s. Design The Heinkel HD 17 was a conventional single-bay biplane with strongly staggered wings of unequal span braced with N-type interplane struts ...

was selected instead and no further aircraft were produced.

Specifications (L 65, second prototype)

References

* Green, W. & Swanborough, G. (1994). ''The Complete Book of Fighters''. London: Salamander Books.
German Aircraft between 1919-1945
{{Albatros aircraft Biplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft 1920s German military reconnaissance aircraft L 065 AFG Memel aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1925