Polish Wings

DWL - RWD
Most famous brand among the Poland's pre-war sports planes was the RWD. This name was an acronym from the names of the brands leading designers: Stanisław Rogalski, Stanisław Wigura and Jerzy Drzewiecki, while the manufacturers' actual name was DWL - Doświadczalne Warsztaty Lotnicze (Experimental Aviational Workshops). It origins date back to 1925 when the Sekcja Lotnicza Koła Mechaników Studentów Politechniki Warszawskiej (Aviational Section of the Circle of Mechanics of Students of Warsaw Institute of Technology) was formed. Besides Rogalski, Wigura and Drzewiecki, active designers of Sekcja Lotnicza and later DWL were also Stanisław Prauss (designer of PZL.23 Karaś, after the war member of design teams of D.H. Comet, H.S. Trident and Airbus A300) and Antoni Kocjan (succesful designer of gliders, during the war organized clandestine arms production for the resistance, whose efforts were instrumental in Allied efforts to investigate German V-weapons centre at Peenemunde, murdered by nazis in 1944).

Already while students on Politechnika Warszawska, Stanisław Rogalski and Stanisław Wigura built (with help from LOPP, PWS and ZMPL in 1926-1927 small plane named WR-1. Unfortunately constant engine malfunctions led to several small accidents and ultimately plane was scrapped in 1929.

Poland, SLKMSPW WR-1
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Another design made by a future member of RWD/DWL design team while still a student was PS-1 by Stanisław Prauss, first flown in 1928. It was a fairly successful design but rather jinxed airframe which suffered damage several times and was finally crashed in 1930 (without casualties). Interesting feature of this plane was that the wing was very thin above the fuselage and had a large hole in the middle to allow the pilot to board the cockpit, which gained the plane rather unflattering nickname latający sedes ("flying toilet seat").

Poland, SLKMSPW PS-1
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First airplane built by DWL was JD-2 designed by Jerzy Drzewiecki in 1925. In 1929 three slightly upgraded JD-2bis planes were made.

Poland, JD-2
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RWD-1 from 1928 was first plane named with acronym of the three designers. Due to faulty engine it had many forced landings, but otherwise was a good design that formed the basis for the further development.

Poland, RWD-1
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RWD-2 was first flown in 1929 and built in small series. Very succesful design, it made a raid around Poland already the same year (1200km), raid Warsaw-Paris-Barcelona-Warsaw (5000km, 42 hours of flight) and established world record of flight altitude for class of aircraft with empty weight below 280kg - 4004 meters.

Poland, RWD-2
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RWD-3 of 1930 was a follow-on to RWD-2 with stronger engine, new landing gear and foldable wings. These improvements however caused too large increase in weight and resulting drop in performance, therefore RWD-3 remained a prototype.

Poland, RWD-3
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RWD-4 was a further development of RWD-2/-3, but larger, with totally new engine, and with landing gear adapted from RWD-3, but without it's foldable wings. It was produced in short series.

Poland, RWD-4
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RWD-7 of 1931 (SP-AGH) was built for the purpose of record-breaking. Indeed, in 1932 it achieved world record of flight altitude (for the airplanes with empty mass below 280kg) - 6023m and of flight speed - 178km/h. It had also extremely short take-off run - 18m (59 feet) with only pilot or 30m (100 feet) with pilot and passenger.

Poland, RWD-7
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Next RWD plane was the famous RWD-5 of 1932. Built in series of 20, flied into history thanks to Stanisław Skarżyński's Transatlantic flight in 1933. (This drawing You could already see earlier)

Poland, RWD-5
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RWD-6 was built (3 planes) specifically for the 1932 Challenge International de Tourisme. That event happened to be a great success to RWD-6 which won this contest - with crew Franciszek Żwirko and Stanisław Wigura (the designer) on SP-AHN - in overall classification, as well as got highest notes for technical design. Unfortunately, the design was not without flaws, that led to a fatal crash of SP-AHN with winning crew just several weeks later.

Poland, RWD-6
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RWD-9 was a development of RWD-6 built for 1934 Challenge International de Tourisme. It proved there to be even more succesful than it's predecessor thanks to extensive wing mechanization, with RWD-9's winning first (crew: Jerzy Bajan and Gustaw Pokrzywka) and second place, ahead of, among others Messerschmitt Bf-108 and Fieseler Fi-67. Total 9 were built (including prototype with inline engine), two of which were sold to Czechoslovakia, one to France and two to Spain. In 1937 one of these was rebuilt into experimental version with front-wheel undercarriage (and inline engine) and redesignated RWD-20.

Poland, RWD-9, RWD-20
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Next design from the RWD team was RWD-8, first flown in 1933 for the contest on the trainer for the military and aero-clubs. RWD-8 was the winner and large series of around 600 was produced (making it the most-produced Polish aircraft of pre-war era and 2nd most-produced of all times, after PZL-104 Wilga). Since the plane's most important user was air force, it will be shown later in the "military" part.

RWD-10 was first flown in1933. It was initially designed for training future fighter pilots, but due to dislike of DWL-RWD by the Air Force HQ these plans weren't fulfilled and instead it was produced (23 planes) as an aerobatics plane.

Poland, RWD-10
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RWD-11 of 1936 was a prototype of small airliner and multi-engine trainer. (This drawing You could already see earlier)

Poland, RWD-11
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RWD-13 of 1935 was a tourist airplane built in series of 85 (including air ambulance RWD-13S), some of which were exported - 4 to Spain, 8 to Brazil (one still remains airworthy), 3 to Palestine (where in 1947 they become some of the first airplanes of Israeli Air Corps), 1 each to Latvia and Estonia, possibly one to Yemen. Licence was sold to Yugoslavia, where at least 6 were built (some of then later ended in collaborationist Croatian Air Force). Also, in 1939 28 Polish RWD-13's were evacuated to Romania where they were pressed into service in the Air Force and used until 1950s, and 1 was flown to Sweden, where it was also induced into the Air Force and after the war served in civilian aviation.

Poland, RWD-13
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Prototype RWD-16 was first flown in 1936. Anomalies in the airflow around the fuselage led to heavy redesign named RWD-16bis, and it's further derivative RWD-21 of 1939. Single surviving RWD-21 can be seen today in Kraków museum of aviation.

Poland, RWD-16, RWD-21
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RWD-15 was created as derivative of RWD-13 and flown in 1937. Including prototype no less than 7 were made.

Poland, RWD-15
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RWD-17 of 1937 was practically a scaled-down version of RWD-8. Less than 30 was made, including several seaplanes for the military. It will be shown later in the "military" part.

RWD-18 was a project of twin-engine 5-seat liason/passenger plane. When the war broke out, the prototype was already under construction.

Poland, RWD-18
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RWD-19 of 1938 was a prototype of dual-seated (in tandem arrangement) high-performance sports plane.

Poland, RWD-19
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RWD-23 was first flown at the beginning of 1939 as an possible replacement for RWD-8. During summer of 1939 the order for information series of 10 was placed by Liga Obrony Powietrznej i Przeciwgazowej (LOPP, League of Air and Anti-gas Defense) but the outbreak of war made production impossible.

Poland, RWD-23
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And so we reached the end of the "Pre-war sports planes" part.
Next weeks update will be posted by Rhade - a "Pre-1939 Polish Air Force" part will begun.

EDIT: 27.01.2014 - added SLKMSPW WR-1 and RWD-18
EDIT: 07.11.2015 - added SLKMSPW PS-1

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