__NOTOC__ The Luft-Limousine or Luftlimousine, also known as Etrich VIII Luft-Limousine, was a single engine

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

built by the

Etrich Etrich Flugzeugwerke (EFW) was a short-lived aircraft manufacturer founded by Igo Etrich. The company became part of ''Brandenburgische Flugzeugwerke'' in 1914, which then, in turn, became part of Hansa-Brandenburg. Some of the planes were manufac ...

company in

Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...

in 1912.

Development

The Luft-Limousine was designed by

Igo Etrich Ignaz "Igo" Etrich (25 December 1879 – 4 February 1967) was an Austrians, Austrian flight pioneer, pilot and fixed-wing aircraft developer. Education Etrich was born on Christmas Day 1879 in the Upper Old Town of Trutnov, Kingdom of Bohemia, ...

, the builder of the

Etrich Taube The Etrich ''Taube'', also known by the names of the various later manufacturers who built versions of the type, such as the Rumpler ''Taube'', was a pre-World War I monoplane aircraft. It was the first military aeroplane to be mass-produced in ...

. The plane was built in the 'Etrich Fliegerwerke' factory in Liebau (today

Lubawka Lubawka () is a town in Poland, in Lower Silesia Voivodship, in Kamienna Góra County. It is the administrative seat of Gmina Lubawka. It lies in the Sudetes near to the border with the Czech Republic on the way across the Lubawka pass (516m) bet ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

). It was an aircraft with a cabin for one pilot and a single passenger that was enclosed with wire gauze and

celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common present-day ...

windows, the reason for which Igo Etrich named it ''Luft-Limousine''. The Luft-Limousine was the first military monoplane with an enclosed cabin. It was powered by a 60 hp

Austro-Daimler Austro-Daimler was an Austrian car manufacturer from 1899 until 1934. It was a subsidiary of the Germany, German ''Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft'' (DMG) until 1909. History In 1890, Eduard Bierenz was appointed as Austrian retailer. The company so ...

engine.

Operational history

The maiden flight of this plane took place in

Josefstadt Josefstadt (; ; "Joseph-Town") is the eighth district of Vienna (). It is near the center of Vienna and was established as a district in 1850, but borders changed later. Josefstadt is a heavily populated urban area with many workers and resi ...

, only few kilometres south of

Trautenau Trutnov (; ) is a town in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 30,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument zones, urban monument zone ...

on 7 May 1912. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

the Luft-Limousine was used by the Austro-Hungarian army.

Operators

; *

Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops The Austro-Hungarian Aviation Troops or Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops ( or , ) were the air force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the empire's dissolution in 1918; it saw combat on both the Eastern Front and Italian Front dur ...

Specifications

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book , editor1-first = Fred T. , editor1-last = Jane , editor1-link = Fred T. Jane , title = Jane's All the World's Aircraft , url = https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34815/34815-h/34815-h.htm#Page_18 , access-date = Aug 17, 2018 , volume = 1913 , year = 1969 , orig-year = 1913 , publisher = Arco Publishing Company Inc. , location = New York, NY , chapter = Aeroplanes & Dirigibles: Austro-Hungarian , lccn = 69-14964 {{cite web , year = 2018 , url = http://chezpeps.free.fr/0/pre-1914/06-251_300-copy_paste_Breguet-Pre-1914-Aircraft-Challenge.html , access-date = Aug 17, 2018 , archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20170718125353/http://chezpeps.free.fr/0/pre-1914/06-251_300-copy_paste_Breguet-Pre-1914-Aircraft-Challenge.html , archive-date = July 18, 2017 , url-status = live , title = Breguet's Pre-1914 Aircraft Challenge{{Unreliable source?, date=August 2018

External links