The Lublin R-VIII was a Polish

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...

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 ...

and

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

designed in the late 1920s by the

Plage i Laśkiewicz Plage i Laśkiewicz (Plage & Laśkiewicz) was the first Polish aerospace manufacturer, located in Lublin and manufacturing aircraft under Lublin name. Full name was: ''Zakłady Mechaniczne E. Plage i T. Laśkiewicz'' – Mechanical Works E. Plage ...

factory in

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...

. It was the first in-house design of Plage i Laśkiewicz, and the first with the name

Development

The aircraft was designed in answer to a request of the

Polish Air Force The Polish Air Force ( pl, Siły Powietrzne, , Air Forces) is the aerial warfare branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 mil ...

for a heavy single-engine reconnaissance and bomber airplane. Work started in 1926. The main designer was

Jerzy Rudlicki Jerzy Rudlicki (14 March 1893 – 18 August 1977) was a Polish pilot and aerospace engineer. Best known for his inventing and patenting of the V-tail (Polish Patent #15938), which is an aircraft tail configuration that combines the rudder and elev ...

(the letter "R" in the designation for his name). The prototype R-VIII was flown in March , 1928. It was fitted with a Farman 12We W-12 engine, but in tests proved to be underpowered. In July 1928 the second prototype was completed with a more powerful

Lorraine-Dietrich 18Kd Lorraine-Dietrich was a French automobile and aircraft engine manufacturer from 1896 until 1935, created when railway locomotive manufacturer ''Société Lorraine des Anciens Etablissements de Dietrich et Cie de Lunéville'' (known as ''De Dietri ...

engine. In August 1928 it flew in the Aviation Contest of the

Little Entente The Little Entente was an alliance formed in 1920 and 1921 by Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (since 1929 Yugoslavia) with the purpose of common defense against Hungarian revanchism and the prospect of a Hab ...

and Poland. It achieved the best result in trials of carrying a payload ( to an altitude of . In 1929, the Polish Aviation Department of War Ministry ordered four aircraft with the designation R-VIIIa. They were built in early 1930. One was fitted with a Lorraine-Dietrich engine, the rest with the

Hispano-Suiza 12Lb Hispano-Suiza piston aero-engines were predominantly piston engines produced by Hispano-Suiza in France, Spain, and under licence in the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia from the First World War through to the 1950s. Development of these ...

. More were not ordered, as the aircraft had good performance when carrying only a limited payload and fuel reserve (which limited its range), when it carried more bombs, or maximum fuel load, its performance was poor. The prototypes and serial production aircraft were used by the

only for a short time. In August–September 1930, three R-VIIIa flew in the Aviation Contest of the Little Entente and Poland, taking a mediocre 7th and 9th places. In service, both Lorraine-Dietrich-powered aircraft crashed - in 1930 and 1931. In 1932, the existing R-VIIIs were converted to

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

s for the Polish Navy. The first prototype was fitted with Lorraine-Dietrich engine and was designated R-VIII bis (Aircraft number 801). Two aircraft with Hispano-Suiza engines were designated R-VIII ter (numbers 802 and 803). The fourth aircraft was broken into spare parts. The maximum speed of the floatplane variant was lowered to 200 km/h. They were also called R-VIII/hydro. A six-seat passenger aircraft, the R-IX, was developed in 1929, based on the R-VIII, but it remained a prototype.

Operational service

The R-VIII floatplanes were used by the Polish Naval Aviation Squadron (''MDLot'') in Puck from 1933, in a long reconnaissance escadre. From 1938, they were assigned to training, and were scheduled for withdrawal from service. They survived until the

Invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

in 1939, but the R-VIII bis had its engine removed by then. After the first German air raid on naval aviation base in Puck on September 1, all floatplanes were evacuated from Puck to the

Hel Peninsula Hel Peninsula (; pl, Mierzeja Helska, Półwysep Helski; csb, Hélskô Sztremlëzna; german: Halbinsel Hela or ''Putziger Nehrung'') is a sand bar peninsula in northern Poland separating the Bay of Puck from the open Baltic Sea. It is loc ...

(the bulk were Lublin R-XIIIs). Since R-VIIIs were quite obsolete by then, they were not used in combat. They were anchored on

Puck Bay The Bay of Puck or Puck Bay (; ; german: Putziger Wiek), is a shallow western branch of the Bay of Gdańsk in the southern Baltic Sea, off the shores of Gdańsk Pomerania, Poland. It is separated from the open sea by the Hel Peninsula. The bay ha ...

by Chalupy on Hel Peninsula, near the base of the peninsula, where they were bombed by

Stuka The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka (from ''Sturzkampfflugzeug'', "dive bomber") was a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe's Cond ...

s on September 8.

Description

Wooden construction

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 ...

, conventional in layout. A fuselage was rectangular in cross-section, plywood covered. Wings canvas and plywood covered, upper wing of greater span. Crew of two, sitting in tandem in an open

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 ...

, with twin controls (three crewmen could be carried as well, with radio operator). Conventional fixed

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

, with a rear skid, or two Short floats.

Powerplants

*W-12 Farman12We , fitted to the first prototype, but proved under-powered. *W-18

power, take-off power, water-cooled (second prototype, one serial R-VIIIa, R-VIII''bis'') *V-12

power, take-off power, water-cooled (three serial R-VIIIa, R-VIII''ter'')

Operators

; *

* Polish Navy

Specifications (R-VIIIa, Lorraine-Dietrich 18Kd engine)

Lublin_R-VIII_3-view_Les_Ailes_May_24,1928

References

*Andrzej Glass: "Polskie konstrukcje lotnicze 1893-1939" (''Polish aviation constructions 1893-1939''), WKiŁ, Warsaw 1977 (, no ISBN)

External links

Photos and drawings at Ugolok Neba
*youtube.com/watch?v=OSp0ruNFY_w&t=564s {{Lublin aircraft 1920s Polish bomber aircraft 1920s Polish military reconnaissance aircraft World War II Polish aircraft R08 Biplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1928