BFW CL.I

The BFW CL.I was a prototype German two-seat escort fighter of the First World War, built by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, the company that was reconstituted as Messerschmitt AG in 1938. The first aircraft flew in April 1918 but was judged inferior in performance to the Hannover CL.V, so it was returned to BFW and fitted with a lighter fuselage as the CL.Ia. Tests on 14 September 1918 were declared unsatisfactory, and BFW began a redesign that produced the CL.III, of which a single prototype was built but never flown because of the Armistice of November 1918. The second CL.I prototype, known to BFW as Type 18, took a 175 hp MAN Mana III six-cylinder in-line engine and became the CL.II, which flew in July 1918, while the CL.IV stayed a paper project. The CL.Ia had a crew of two, a length of 7.81 m, a wingspan of 10.62 m and a 120 kW Mercedes D.III engine, and carried one or two synchronised 7.92 mm machine guns plus a ring-mounted gun for the observer.