Model of the Month February 2018 Antara D & DS
02/18 Antara D & DS:
This was a reconnaisance biplane of the czaristic air force and was deployed during world war I and the ensuing civil war after the October Revolution.
The ANTARA company was founded in 1915 by the Italien A.A. Antara in Odessa and built various French planes under license. A company employee, the Frenchman Decamps, constructed this reconnaisance plane (and put the „D“ in its name). A captured German Aviatik-biplane served him as a model.
Its maiden flight took place in December 1915. It was the hayday of the Fokker monoplane at the western front. The plane was powered by a Monosoupape rotary engine built by the French company Gnome. The same engine powered the above mentioned Fokker monoplane.
Pretty soon the plane had to be thoroughly improved due to stuctural shortcomings. The upper wing was broadened and the spar was reinforced, the fuselage got longer. Its first flight took place half a year after the „D“-type in July 1916. The engine was provided by Clerget and later was replaced by a Salmson engine. The plane was now named ANTARA DS or ANASAL.
The flight quality was mediocre: the plane was not stable and top-heavy. Crews suspected that the plane could easily crash in combat. But there were no alternatives and so they had to make do with this plane until the end of the civil war.
Technical data Antara D and DS (in brackets)
Length 7.70 m (8.10 m); height 2.90 m (3.20 m); wing span 11.50 m (11.42); wing area
35.00 m2 (37.00 m2); empty mass 515 kg (814 kg); take-off weight 865 kg (1,164 kg)
engine: Gnome Monosoupape 9-cyl. air-cooled rotary engine with 74 kW/100 hp (Salmson
9-cyl. air-cooled rotary engine with 118 kW/160 hp)
v/max 132 km/h (144 km/h); time to climb to 1000 m: 7 min (5.3 min); ceiling 4000 m (4300 m); endurance 3.5 h (3.6 h)