Messerschmitt M 19

The Messerschmitt M 19, also known as the BFW M.19, was the first in a line of German low-wing, single-engine sports planes designed by Willy Messerschmitt while he worked for Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. It was developed to compete in the Sachsenflug competition for single-seat lightplanes, to requirements set by the German aviation research institute DVL, and it was Messerschmitt's first low-wing cantilever monoplane, with a fuselage and tail clearly related to those of the high-wing two-seat M.17 of 1925. It was powered by an 18 kW ABC Scorpion engine. Flown by Theo Cronweiss, it won both the technical prize and the overall award at the Sachsenflug, earning Messerschmitt 60,000 RM, which he invested in BFW. Only two were built, but the clean low-wing layout led to the two-seat M.23, M.27, M.31 and M.35. It was 5.40 m long with a 9.60 m wingspan and a top speed of 114 km/h.