Albatros B.III

The Albatros B.III, with the post-war company designation L.5, was a German First World War reconnaissance biplane built by Albatros Flugzeugwerke as the Albatros LDD. It was the last of the company's unarmed two-seat reconnaissance aircraft and a precursor to the C.III, the most important of its armed reconnaissance biplanes. The changes from the earlier versions were fairly minor; it introduced what became the typical Albatros tail when the rudder was rounded off, and it was otherwise similar to the B.II. It was built in small numbers during 1915, by which time it was already clear that reconnaissance aircraft needed arming, so Albatros moved on to the C.I and then the C.III. The Luftstreitkräfte, the Kaiserliche Marine and Austria-Hungary operated it.