An experimental version of a successful World War I fighter.
In the first months of 1918, the backbone of German fighter aviation was formed by Albatros aircraft. These machines could no longer ensure air superiority. The German command therefore made desperate efforts to change the situation. New competitions for fighter aircraft were announced one after another, and an expansion of the air force was also planned. From April, Fokker D.VII aircraft began entering squadron service, but their production was too low relative to demand.
Another problem was the powerplant. The rotary engine, despite its popularity, had a serious drawback: torque. The Siemens factory produced a counter-rotary engine, in which the crankshaft rotated in the opposite direction to the crankcase with cylinders and the propeller. These engines, with increased power, were installed on the Siemens-Schuckert D.III and D.IV aircraft. Deliveries of these machines began in the first months of 1918. These aircraft had the best climb characteristics of all World War I fighters. Despite their barrel-shaped silhouette, they also had excellent manoeuvrability.
The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, imposed on defeated Germany the obligation to completely destroy all military aircraft. The same fate befell the SSW D.III and SSW D.IV machines. The only surviving SSW D.IV airframe was transferred, with the approval of the Allied authorities, to the German Experimental Aviation Institute (Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt) in Berlin. The purpose of the experimental research was to explore the potential of this machine for civil aviation. In 1926, the Institute commissioned the Albatros Berlin-Johannisthal factory to build a high-altitude aircraft based on the SSW D.IV.
The design of this conversion was developed by engineer Martin Schrenk. It involved enlarging the wings to a significantly greater span, reinforcing them with two pairs of struts, changing the tail unit outline and using a specially designed high-altitude propeller. After the conversion, the aircraft received the designation Albatros H.1 and factory number 10114. However, the aircraft never made a single flight, as during ground tests the new wings proved too fragile to ensure safe flight. The project was abandoned, and the structure ended up on display in Berlin.
Discovered in Poland in 1945, 18 years later it came to the nascent Krakow Museum as a heavily damaged, dismembered fuselage without wings, but with the undercarriage, tail unit, upper wing cabane struts, and the powerplant and propeller.
Reassembling the fuselage was one of the most technologically challenging conservation processes undertaken at the Museum. Approximately one quarter of the fuselage was reconstructed from loose sheets of broken plywood, and the surviving remnants of the original fabric covering were also conserved and reinforced.
| Wingspan | 5,7 m |
| Length | 12,56 m |
| Takeoff weight | – |
| Maximum speed | – |
| Ceiling | – |
| Range | – |
| Armament | – |
| Engine | 11-cylinder, radial, counter-rotary, Siemens Halske Sh-IIIa, 160 hp (118 kW) (the engine was restored to running condition at the Museum) |
