Industry giants take to the air

Hungary’s first aircraft factory was set up in Budapest in 1912 by two industrial heavyweights, the Ganz works and the Manfred Weiss works, with backing from a bank and the financier Camillo Castiglioni, who would also help BMW. With no designs of its own it began by building Lohner aircraft under licence. Its first manager, Viktor Wittmann, had studied aircraft building in Reims; he died in May 1915 when he lost control of one of the factory’s machines on a demonstration flight.

A factory among the carpenters

The first site had no airfield, so aircraft were carted to Rákosmező for assembly. Wartime demand soon forced a move to Albertfalva, a district full of carpenters — exactly the skill wood-and-plywood aircraft needed — with room for hangars and a grass field. Once Hansa-Brandenburg joined the owners, the factory turned out Brandenburg C.I two-seaters by the hundred, powered by Hiero engines it also built.

The C.I goes to the Italian front

Its own best design, the UFAG C.I reconnaissance biplane, entered service in April 1918 and flew with at least 30 squadrons on the Italian front. About 250 were built, some by Phönix under licence, and production went on after the armistice. Survivors served the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, Romania captured 20, and others became mail planes.

Továrny

• Albertfalva works · Albertfalva, Budapest — Hangars and a grass airfield in a carpentry district

Lidé

• Viktor Wittmann · first manager, test pilot — Killed in a demonstration crash in May 1915
• Camillo Castiglioni · financier