The KOD-1 was an Estonian-designed Latvian

trainer aircraft A trainer is a class of aircraft designed specifically to facilitate flight training of pilots and aircrews. The use of a dedicated trainer aircraft with additional safety features—such as tandem flight controls, forgiving flight characteristi ...

built by '' Liepājas Kara Ostas Darbnīcas'' (Liepāja military manufacturing). The KOD-1 was built from 1936 until 1938 and was used as a trainer by the Latvian Aeroclub and the Aizsargi home guard.

Design and operational history

In the 1930s, the Estonian designers Voldemar Post, Otto Org and Roman Neudorf (later changed his name to Rein Tooma) had constructed PON-1 trainer in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

. They gave the production license also to

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

. Production started in 1935 in the Liepāja military workshops under name KOD-1. The airplane was designed as a one or two-seater

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 ...

. The first flight of KOD-1 was in January 1936 when it was flown from Liepāja to

Spilve airport Spilve Airport ( lv, Spilves lidosta, also given as ''Rīgas Centrālā lidosta'' – Riga Central Airport) is a former civilian and military airport in Latvia located 5 km north of Riga's city centre, from which aircraft took off as early a ...

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

. In March the first four airplanes were deployed to the Aizsargi aviation unit. The airplanes were actively used for training purposes as well as for demonstration flights in the Baltics and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. In total at least nine planes were built. After the Occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union in 1940 the KOD-1 was not used and several examples were destroyed. In 1941 there was only one airworthy KOD-1 at the

Gulbene Gulbene (; german: Schwanenburg) is a town in northeastern Latvia. It is an administrative center of Gulbene Municipality. The area of this region is , with a population of 29,797 inhabitants (69,369 sealen, 10,015 urban, 19,782 rural populat ...

airport. After the start of

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

, the airport was evacuated to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in early July. The last KOD-1 crashed during takeoff from Gulbene.

Specifications

The first models of the KOD-1 had Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major I five-cylinder radial engines, but due to constant overheating and compression problems they were replaced with de Havilland Gipsy Major engines from 1937.

References

Bibliography

* Gerdessen, Frederik. "Estonian Air Power 1918 – 1945". '' Air Enthusiast'', No. 18, April – July 1982. pp. 61–76. {{ISSN, 0143-5450.

External links

latvianaviation.com

1930s Latvian military trainer aircraft