The Thulin LA was a Swedish two-seat, single-engine

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

Enoch Thulin Enoch Leonard Thulin, (15 September 1881 – 14 May 1919) is primarily remembered as a pioneer of the Swedish aircraft industry. He was an engineer who also worked on cars, lorries and internal combustion engines. Enoch was born in Simris, ...

in 1917 and made by his company

AB Thulinverken AB Thulinverken was a company in Landskrona, Sweden, founded in 1914 as Enoch Thulins Aeroplanfabrik by the airman and aircraft technician Enoch Thulin. The company became Sweden's first aircraft manufacturer. In 1920, Thulin also started manu ...

Landskrona Landskrona (old da, Landskrone) is a town in Scania, Sweden. Located on the shores of the Öresund, it occupies a natural port, which has lent the town at first military and subsequent commercial significance. Ferries operate from Landskrona t ...

. It was based on the earlier Thulin L and E aircraft, with a new engine, fuselage and

empennage The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...

. The L and E types were in turn based on the German

Albatros B.II The Albatros B.II, (post-war company designation L.2) was an unarmed German two-seat reconnaissance biplane of the First World War. Design and development Designed by Robert Thelen based on his 1913 Albatros B.I, the B.II was the aircraft that ...

aircraft, like the NAB Albatros. The Thulin LA was used in Sweden, the Netherlands (10) and Finland (1). This type also made the first passenger transport flights between Sweden and Denmark in 1919. Altogether there were 15 Thulin LAs built.

Engine

The engine used was a Thulin G, which was an 11-cylinder Le Rhône 11F (bore x stroke ),The Le Rhône 11F was essentially an enlarged 9-cylinder

Le Rhône 9C The Le Rhône 9C is a nine-cylinder rotary aircraft engine produced in France by '' Société des Moteurs Le Rhône'' / Gnome et Rhône. Also known as the Le Rhône 80 hp in a reference to its nominal power rating, the engine wa ...

with two extra cylinders, developing more. manufactured under licence by Thulinverken in Sweden. Thulin had journeyed to France in 1915 and acquired the licence to manufacture it from

Gnome et Rhône Gnome et Rhône was a major French aircraft engine manufacturer. Between 1914 and 1918 they produced 25,000 of their 9-cylinder Delta and Le Rhône 110 hp (81 kW) rotary designs, while another 75,000 were produced by various licens ...

, as well as the

, which was sold as the Thulin A. The Thulin-built engine, with a dry weight of , replaced the much heavier original engine of the Albatros B.II, a Mercedes D.II 6-cylinder inline water-cooled engine weighing .

Use in Finland

The

Finnish Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment = 159 , equipment_label ...

(The ''Whites'') received one aircraft as a gift from Sweden from the grocery magnate G. Svensson in the spring of 1918. The aircraft arrived by ship at

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

on 5 May 1918, where it was used at the Turku Flying School (Turun Lentokoulu), established on 1 May 1918. The flying school was renamed V Flying Detachment (V Lento-osasto) of the Finnish Air Force on 1 October 1918. The aircraft was mainly used as a trainer aircraft and was destroyed in a crash due to engine malfunction outside

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

's Pohjoissatama harbour in February 1919.

Variants

Thulin also made a

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

version of the LA, based on the Albatros B.II-W ("Wasserflugzeug").

Operators

; *

Finnish Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment = 159 , equipment_label ...

; * Royal Netherlands Navy ; * Swedish Air Force

Specifications (LA)

References