Avia BH-6

BH-6
General information
Type	Fighter
Manufacturer	Avia
Designer	Pavel Beneš and Miroslav Hajn
Number built	1
History
First flight	1923

The Avia BH-6 was a prototype fighter aircraft built in Czechoslovakia in 1923. It was a single-bay biplane of unusual configuration, developed in tandem with the BH-7, which shared its fuselage and tail design.

Development

The BH-6 had wings of unequal span, but unusually, the top wing was the shorter of the two, and while it was braced to the bottom wing with a single I-strut on either side, these sloped inwards from bottom to top. Finally, the top wing was attached to the fuselage not by a set of cabane struts, but by a single large pylon.

The BH-6 crashed early in its test programme, and when the related BH-7 did also, both implementations of this design were abandoned.

Specifications

General characteristics

• Crew: one pilot
• Length: 6.47 m (21 ft 3 in)
• Wingspan: 9.98 m (32 ft 9 in)
• Height: 2.88 m (9 ft 5 in)
• Wing area: 22.6 m^2 (243 sq ft)
• Empty weight: 878 kg (1,936 lb)
• Gross weight: 1,180 kg (2,601 lb)
• Powerplant: 1 × Skoda licence-built Hispano-Suiza 8Fb , 224 kW (300 hp)

Performance

• Maximum speed: 220 km/h (137 mph, 119 kn)
• Endurance: 2 hours
• Service ceiling: 7,000 m (23,000 ft)

Armament

• 2 × fixed, forward-firing .303 Vickers machine guns

See also

Related development

• BH-7
• BH-8
• BH-17

References

• Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions. p. 86.
• World Aircraft Information Files. London: Bright Star Publishing. pp. File 889 Sheet 86.
• Němeček, V. (1968). Československá letadla. Praha: Naše Vojsko.
• airwar.ru