Copper works to aircraft works

Plage i Laśkiewicz began in 1860 as a Lublin workshop making copper goods and boilers. In 1920, in the newly reborn Polish state, it became the first Polish factory to produce aircraft, after a government order of 17 February 1920 for licence-built Ansaldo Balilla fighters and A.300 light bombers. The 13-hectare works employed around 500 people by 1921, but inexperience showed: quality was poor, crashes numerous, and the order was cut to 70 A.300s and 50 Balillas, completed by 1924.

Rudlicki’s R-series

The factory learned fast. It built 100 Potez XV bombers in 1925–1926, 150 Potez 25s in 1928–1931 and Fokker F.VIIb/3m airliners and bombers. In the mid-1920s Jerzy Rudlicki became lead designer and the company began its own Lublin designs, designated R for Rudlicki. The most important was the R-XIII army liaison aircraft, Poland’s main type in that role and the only mass-produced Lublin. An experimental variant, the R-XIX, introduced the V-tail, invented by Rudlicki.

Bankrupted by the state

Polish aviation officials, led by Ludomił Rayski, wanted the whole industry in state hands. In late 1935, after just seven of 50 ordered R-XIIIF floatplanes had been delivered, the Ministry of War broke the contract on a pretext. The company went bankrupt and was nationalised as Lubelska Wytwórnia Samolotów, LWS, which bought 18 nearly finished R-XIIIFs at scrap price and completed them. Plage i Laśkiewicz had also built bus and car bodies from 1924 to 1933.

Factories

• Lublin works · ul. Fabryczna 26, Lublin — 13 ha site

People

• Jerzy Rudlicki · lead designer — Designed the R-series and invented the V-tail
• Stanisław Cywiński · head of technical office, early 1920s

Records and firsts

• First Polish aircraft manufacturer
• V-tail invented by Jerzy Rudlicki, first used on the R-XIX