Arado L II

Arado L II
Arado L IIa during the tour of Europe in 1930
Type:	Sports and touring aircraft
Design country:	German Empire
Manufacturer:	Arado
First flight:	November 1929
Production time:	1929/1930
Number of pieces:	5

The Arado L II was a German sport and touring aircraft made by Arado Flugzeugwerke .

development

An L IIa with folded surfaces during the flight to Germany in 1931

The L II was designed in 1929 by Arado chief designer Walter Rethel . A special feature was the arrangement of the control stick, which was installed hanging from the cabin ceiling between the seats. In November of that year, the first and only specimen with the serial number 57 started testing. The landing gear broke on one of the first test flights. It turned out that it had been designed too weakly and with too little track width , which is why it was changed several times. On December 3, 1929, the aircraft, also known as "Treff As", was presented to the public at Berlin-Tempelhof airfield . It was approved two months later with the registration number D-1771 .

For the European tour , a version called L IIa was developed with a widened landing gear reinforced with additional struts, which also received fuel tanks that were enlarged by 20 liters. According to the competition regulations, it was provided with folding and braced wings. A small series of four pieces with the serial numbers 58 to 61 was created, which were registered in July 1930 as D – 1873 to D – 1876 . The planes themselves were filed in April for the competition, three of Arado and one by the DMS . The sightseeing flight was opened with a cross-country flight over 7560 kilometers, in which two L IIa were already canceled due to technical difficulties. The two remaining were able to take 18th and 22nd place in the field of participants, which originally comprised 101 aircraft, but had already shrunk to 60 at the beginning of the cross-country flight and in the technical evaluation that concluded the competition, only 35 aircraft. In view of the numerous failures, this was acceptable evidence of the performance of the aircraft construction company, which had only been around for about five years.

After the end of the competition, one of the L II prototypes remained in the possession of Arado Handelsgesellschaft mbH. The other L IIa went to different owners, two of them to Luftdienst GmbH, where they flew at the Reich Association of the German Aviation Industry Travemünde (RDL T'de). The last of these aircraft was still in use until June 1937 with the flight technology specialist group in Berlin . The L IIa registered by the DVS went to the German Aviation Research Institute (DVL) in 1931 and to the Düsseldorf local branch of the German Aviation Association (DLV) in 1933 .

construction

The L II is a cantilever , the L IIa a strutted shoulder wing in a composite construction .

Fuselage: The fuselage consisted of a tubular steel frame covered with fabric and aluminum sheet cladding in the engine area. The cabin was furnished with two seats side by side, behind which was a zippered canvas covering a luggage compartment.

Structure : The wings of the L II were designed as a cantilever, two-spar timber construction and were covered with plywood on the upper and lower sides from the wing nose to the level of the rear spar and covered with fabric behind. The L IIa had struts running from the underside of the wing to the fuselage, the wings were also divided and foldable backwards.

Tail unit: As a typical Arado design feature of that time, the tail unit had an horizontal fin that was placed on and braced on the vertical fin with a rudder behind it. The ailerons were formed from a wooden frame covered with plywood.

Landing gear: L II as well as L IIa had a two-part main landing gear with spring struts and without an axle with a grinding spur at the rear.

Technical specifications

Parameter	Data (L II)	Data (L IIa)
crew	2	2
span	10.50 m	10.9 m 3.26 m with folded wings
length	6.72 m	6.72 m 7.52 m with folded surfaces
height	2.28 m	2.28 m 2.75 m with folded surfaces
Wing area	16.0 m²	17.0 m²
Preparation mass	405 kg	460 kg
Payload	265 kg	320 kg
payload	k. A.	60 kg
Takeoff mass	670 kg	780 kg
drive	an air-cooled four-cylinder four - stroke in - line engine with hanging cylinders
Type	Argus As 8
fuel	110 l	130 l
Starting power	95 PS (70 kW)
Continuous output	80 hp (59 kW)
Top speed	162 km / h at an altitude of 1000 m	166 km / h at an altitude of 1000 m
Rise time	7.0 min at 1000 m altitude	7.8 min at 1000 m altitude 18.1 min at 2000 m altitude
Range	k. A.	700 km
Service ceiling	k. A.	4000 m

literature

• Volker Koos: Arado Flugzeugwerke 1925–1945 . Heel, Königswinter 2007, ISBN 978-3-89880-728-9 , pp. 35/36 .
• Helmut Stützer: The German military aircraft 1919–1934 . E. S. Mittler & Sohn, Herford 1984, ISBN 3-8132-0184-8 , p. 204 .

Web links

Commons : Arado L II  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Volker Koos: Aviation between the Baltic Sea and Breitling . Warnemünde sea and land airfield 1914–1945. Transpress, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-344-00480-8 , pp. 130 .