Born on the wrong side of the border

Aviatik was founded in December 1909 by the Alsatian Georges Chatel in Mülhausen, then a German city and today Mulhouse in France. Its first aeroplanes were not even its own: the works built French Hanriot monoplanes and Farman biplanes under licence. From 1912 the designer Robert Wild gave the company its own biplanes, starting with the P.13, and they did so well in competitions that the German army ordered 101 of the P.13 and P.14 in 1913. On 1 August 1914, with French guns uncomfortably close, the factory was moved to Freiburg, and in 1916 to new halls at Leipzig-Heiterblick.

The observer sat in front

The war made Aviatik. Its unarmed B.I and B.II two-seaters flew the early reconnaissance sorties, and Italy’s SAML built 410 B.Is under licence. The armed C.I that followed in 1915 became the company’s first true mass-production type, with 548 built by Aviatik and Hannover. Oddly, the C.I seated its observer in front of the pilot, the reverse of every other German C-class machine. It was famous enough that when a British pilot shot one down on 7 November 1915 he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

An Austro-Hungarian twin

Aviatik also had a sibling in Vienna, the Austro-Hungarian Aviatik works, which developed designs of its own. Julius von Berg’s D.I fighter of 1917 was the first locally designed fighter adopted by the Austro-Hungarian air service, and about 700 were built by the firm and its licensees. None of it survived the peace: after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the German company did not continue. After the war the Berg D.I flew on with the air forces of Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia.

工場

• Mülhausen works · Mülhausen, Alsace (now Mulhouse, France) — Original factory, 1909–1914
• Freiburg works · Freiburg im Breisgau — Relocated here on 1 August 1914
• Leipzig-Heiterblick works · Leipzig — New facilities from 1916
• Austro-Hungarian Aviatik · Vienna — Subsidiary with its own designs, including the Berg D.I

人々

• Georges Chatel · founder — Alsatian who founded the company in December 1909
• Robert Wild · designer — Designed the first Aviatik biplanes from 1912
• Julius von Berg · designer — Designed the Austro-Hungarian D.I fighter

記録と初記録

• First locally designed fighter adopted by the Austro-Hungarian air service: the Berg D.I
• The C.I was the only German C-class type with the observer in the front seat