Lebed XI
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| {{Infobox Aircraft Begin
| name=Type XI | image= | caption= }}{{Infobox Aircraft Type | type=Reconnaissance aircraft | national origin=Russia | manufacturer=Lebed | designer= | first flight= | introduced= | retired= | status= | primary user=Imperial Russian Air Force | number built=ca 10-12 | developed from= | variants with their own articles= }} |
Lebed XI was the designation applied to a number of reconnaissance aircraft supplied to the Imperial Russian Air Force by the Lebed factory of St Petersburg during World War I. Rather than representing any one particular type of aircraft, or even aircraft of Lebed's own design, the designation covered a variety of different German Albatros aircraft that had been brought down behind Russian lines and captured.
History
The St Petersburg Aviation Company began manufacturing Lebed XI based on aircraft captured by the Imperial Russian Air Service in 1915.{{Cite book|last=Sutton|first=Alan|title=Military Aviation of the First World War|last2=Wood|first2=Alan C.|publisher=Fonthill Media|year=2017|language=en}} Lebed repaired or rebuilt these machines and returned them to service on the Russian side. A prototype was successfully air tested on December 28, 1915. While 225 aircraft were ordered, only ten Lebed XI aircraft were built and entered service for the Imperial Russian army air service.{{Cite book|last=Chant|first=Chris|title=Austro-Hungarian Aces of World War 1|publisher=Osprey Publishing|year=2012|isbn=978-1-78200-890-3|pages=20|language=en}} These were designed as reconnaissance and artillery airplanes and resembled the Albatros B-category biplane.{{Cite book|last=Chant|first=Chris|title=Austro-Hungarian Aces of World War 1|publisher=Osprey Publishing|year=2012|isbn=978-1-78200-890-3|pages=20|language=en}}
Several Russian aircraft were built based on the Lebed XI. These include the Lebed-LM1, Lebed XII, and Lebed XIII.{{Cite book|last=Kelly|first=Maurice|title=Russian Motor Vehicles: The Czarist Period 1784 to 1917|publisher=Veloce Publishing Ltd|year=2009|isbn=978-1-84584-213-0|pages=54|language=en}}
Subtypes from A1 through A8 were assigned to identify different Albatros designs supplied. As replacements for the damaged water-cooled engines used on the German aircraft were hard to come by, Lebed eventually fitted Salmson radial engines to some airframes.
Operators
References
{{reflist}}
- {{cite book |last= Taylor |first= Michael J. H. |title=Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation |year=1989 |publisher=Studio Editions |location=London |pages=570 }}
- [http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/lebedxi.html Russian Aviation Museum]
- [http://www.airwar.ru/enc/other1/leb11.html Уголок неба]
{{Lebed aircraft}}