Hansa-Brandenburg W.17
The Hansa-Brandenburg W.17 was a single-seat fighter flying boat designed by the Hansa-Brandenburg Aircraft Company for the Austro-Hungarian Navy's Naval Aviation during the First World War. It was developed from the Hansa-Brandenburg CC in 1917. Two prototypes may have been built, a biplane and possibly a triplane; the existence of the latter has not been confirmed. Neither was given a production contract after the biplane crashed.
Design and development
Developed from the biplane, pusher configuration Hansa-Brandenburg CC, the first prototype of the W.17 shared that aircraft's general features, namely single-bay wings, wing floats, and a single-step hull to allow the aircraft to break free from the water more easily. It replaced the latter's star-shaped interplane struts with two angled struts on each side that connected the upper wing to the aircraft's hull. A cantilevered lower wing was used instead of the CC's swept lower wing and it used a water-cooled Hiero 6 straight-six engine. The armament was intended to consist of two fixed, forward-firing Schwarzlose MG-16ss machine guns.A.49/I was completed in July 1917 and was tested by fighter ace Gottfried Banfield, who judged the aircraft unsuitable for service due to its poor maneuverability and that its lower wing lacked the necessary strength. It supposedly crashed in May 1918 when its upper wing broke away.
Aviation historians William Green and Gordon Swanborough state that there was a triplane second prototype with vertical interplane struts that was submitted to Naval Aviation for testing in July 1917, but no documentation confirming that has been found.