Aviatik D.VII

The Aviatik D.VII was a prototype German single-seat biplane fighter aircraft built by Aviatik in the last year of the First World War. It could not participate in the Third Fighter Competition of October 1918 because it used the wrong engine and it saw no military service, although 50 aircraft were possibly found in storage after the war. The only significant change from the earlier Aviatik D.VI was a completely new tail structure.

Design and development

The D.VI and D.VII were both single-seat, two-bay biplanes of wooden construction with a plywood-covered fuselage and fabric-covered wings and tail surfaces. Their water-cooled, Benz Bz.IIIbm V-eight piston engine was equipped with a gearbox and drove a wooden, fixed-pitch, four-bladed propeller that was fitted with a spinner. The engine was covered by a metal cowling. The radiator was located in front of the engine. Its armament comprised two fixed, forward-firing LMG 08/15 Spandau machine guns. The tail structure of the D.VII was revised and enlarged from that of the D.VI, significantly improving its maneuverability and flying qualities.
The Third Fighter Competition only allowed aircraft powered by the BMW IIIa engine to participate, so the D.VII was not demonstrated there. Aviation historians Jack Herris, William Green & Gordon Swanborough maintain that Aviatik covertly built 50 D.VIIs that the Inter-Allied Aeronautical Commission of Control discovered after the war, but this is not confirmed by historians Lennart Andersson and Ray Sanger in their book on postwar German aviation, Retribution and Recovery: German Aircraft and Aviation 1919 to 1922.