Albatros C.I

The Albatros C.I was a two-seat general-purpose biplane built by Albatros Flugzeugwerke, with the post-war company designations L.6 and L.7, and the first of the company's successful C-series aircraft. Designed by a team led by Robert Thelen in response to a late 1914 requirement for an armed two-seater with at least 150 hp, it was a larger development of the unarmed B.II with the observer moved to the rear cockpit behind a ring-mounted machine gun. It entered frontline service with the Luftstreitkräfte in late April 1915, and 228 were operational by the end of that year. It flew reconnaissance, artillery spotting and bombing missions and was flown by Oswald Boelcke and Manfred von Richthofen. The C.III replaced it at the front in 1916, after which it served as a trainer; Lithuania, Poland and Sweden also flew it.