Avia B-534
The Avia B-534 was a Czechoslovak single-seat biplane fighter designed by František Novotný and built by Avia around a licence-built Hispano-Suiza 12Y engine. First flown in 1933, it became Czechoslovakia's standard fighter, with 328 equipping 21 squadrons in September 1938 and 568 completed by 1939; the partition of the country kept it out of Czechoslovak combat, and it fought the Second World War instead with Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany and other operators. Its last victory, in September 1944, was the last recorded by a biplane fighter, and no complete example survives.
Why It Mattered
The Avia B-534 was Czechoslovakia's standard fighter of the late 1930s: by 1938 it was the sole type in Czech service tasked with the interceptor role, and on 1 September 1938 some 328 B-534s and Bk-534s equipped 21 fighter squadrons. At the 1937 international air meeting at Zürich it outflew every other fighter participating except the Messerschmitt Bf 109. Yet Czechoslovakia never used it in its own defence: the partition of the country in 1939 prevented any combat operations by the nation that had produced it. The type's whole fighting career was flown under other colours, in the Second World War.
Design Notes
František Novotný designed the B-534 as a development of his earlier B-34. The second B-34 prototype was re-engined with a licence-built Hispano-Suiza 12Ybrs V12 before it flew, made its maiden flight on 25 May 1933, and was redesignated B-534.1 after testing. The airframe combined a steel-tube fuselage with a riveted steel wing structure covered in fabric. In April 1934 the second prototype set a Czechoslovak national speed record of 365.7 km/h. Four production series followed: the troublesome wing guns of the early aircraft were deleted from the 47th machine, later series carried all four 7.92 mm guns in the fuselage sides, and the IV series made the enclosed cockpit standard. The Bk-534 was designed around a 20 mm Oerlikon cannon firing through the nose, but problems with the cannon installation led Avia to use a third machine gun in the nose instead. The air force began receiving the type in October 1935; by 1939 the completed total stood at 568.
Operational History
When Czechoslovakia was partitioned in March 1939, the Slovak Air Force was organised from the Czechoslovak units based in Slovakia, and its B-534s were in combat against Hungary within the month, a pair of them shot down by Hungarian anti-aircraft fire. In September 1939 Slovakia joined the German invasion of Poland, its B-534s typically escorting Junkers Ju 87 dive-bombers. The same squadrons fought alongside German forces in Ukraine in the summer of 1941, but obsolescence and a lack of spares relegated the survivors to training and other secondary duties during 1943. Bulgaria bought 78 B-534s from Germany; on 1 August 1943, 48 of them made two passes at American B-24 Liberators returning from the Ploieşti raid — hits were scored, but no B-24s were shot down. Captured aircraft were heavily used by the Luftwaffe as fighter trainers and glider tugs, and three were used to test carrier landing operations for the unfinished Graf Zeppelin. Greece's small number of B-534s were used during the Greco-Italian War of 1940–1941. The type's last combat came in the Slovak National Uprising, when on 2 September 1944 František Cyprich downed a Hungarian Junkers Ju 52 in a repaired B-534 — the last recorded biplane fighter air-to-air victory.
Afterlife
No complete B-534 survived the war. The aircraft displayed at the Prague Aviation Museum at Kbely was reconstructed in 1973–1975 around substantial surviving parts of an original aircraft, above all its fuselage structure: the original fuselage bore construction number 226, while the wings, tail surfaces and other missing parts were newly made from the original drawings, and the aircraft was first presented to the public in June 1975. A second replica, of the Bk-534 and likewise incorporating original parts, is on display at the Museum of Aviation at Košice International Airport in Slovakia. Wikipedia describes the B-534 as perhaps one of the best-known Czechoslovak aircraft of the era.