The Astra-Șeșefschi was a two-seat

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

reconnaissance aircraft A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as ...

designed and built in 1923.

Design and development

The Astra Aircraft Factory was an aircraft manufacturer in Romania that operated from 1923 to 1925. The factory was created by the merging of the ''

Marta Marta may refer to: People * Marta (given name), a feminine given name * Märta, a feminine given name * Marta (surname) :István Márta composer * Marta (footballer) (born 1986), Brazilian professional footballer Places * Marta (river), an ...

'' factory and the '' Weitzer wagon'' factory. Astra-Șeșefschi, named after its designer, was a wholly Romanian designed aircraft apart from its engine. The Șeșefschi was an all-wood machine, like many in the 1920s but also because timber was then an important Romanian export. It was a

single bay 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 ...

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 ...

with two- spar wings mounted with noticeable stagger and braced with a single, broad, forward-leaning interplane strut on each side, assisted by wire cross-bracing. The upper wing was braced over the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

on two transverse, inverted-V

cabane struts In aeronautics, bracing comprises additional structural members which stiffen the functional airframe to give it rigidity and strength under load. Bracing may be applied both internally and externally, and may take the form of strut, which act in c ...

and the lower one was mounted on the lower fuselage

longeron In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural ...

s. Both wings were near-rectangular in plan apart from blunted tips but they were of different size, the lower smaller in both span and

chord Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

by about 15%. Unlike the upper wing, the lower one carried slight dihedral. Only the upper wing carried ailerons, which were short, reached to the wingtips and broadened as they did so. The biplane was powered by a 250 hp ''Marta-Benz'' engine, a six-cylinder, water-cooled, upright inline built at Astra. It was cooled with a pair of cylindrical Lamblin

radiator Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in cars, buildings, and electronics. A radiator is always a ...

s attached to the undercarriage legs. The tall

engine cowling A cowling is the removable covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, and on outboard boat motors. On airplanes, cowlings are used to reduce drag and to cool the engine. On boats, cowlings are a cove ...

made the nose deep, but as it reduced rearwards into a rounded decking over a rectangular section structure the fuselage became more slender. Its pilot's

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

was just behind the wing trailing edge, which had a broad cut-out in it to improve his upward and forward field of view. Close behind there was a second cockpit for the observer. The pilot controlled a single, fixed

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...

firing through the propeller disc and the observer had a pair of guns on a flexible mount. He also had a radio and a camera. At the rear the triangular

fin A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. Fin ...

, built of

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 ...

, was an integral part of the fuselage and carried a generous, deep, rounded

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

. The Șeșefschi's horizontal tail was mounted on top of the fuselage. The angle of incidence of its triangular plan

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplane ...

could be adjusted on the ground and split elevators had a small, central gap to allow rudder movement. It had a simple, tailskid undercarriage with its mainwheels on a single axle, each end elastically sprung from a V-strut mounted on the lower longeron. The tailskid had its own

shock absorber A shock absorber or damper is a mechanical or hydraulic device designed to absorb and damp shock impulses. It does this by converting the kinetic energy of the shock into another form of energy (typically heat) which is then dissipated. Most sh ...

. The exact date of the first flight of the Șeșefschi is not known but it was reported as "just having made satisfactory tests" in September 1923.

Design and development

Specifications

References

Further reading