14 Dec 06
Skoda
Both the engineering conglomerate Skoda - which dates to 1859 - and Laurin & Klement, the car-maker it took over in 1925 to get into the automotive industry, have dabbled in aviation. Laurin & Klement, originally a bicycle-maker, had made military vehicles at its factory in Mlada Boleslav, near Prague, during WWI, as well as ambulances and ammunition, and it expanded into agricultural machinery and buses post-war; in 1920, it won a government contract to produce Lorraine-Dietrich aircraft under licence. Skoda, meanwhile, had formed its Avia division in 1919, and made planes fitted with Hispano-Suiza engines built under licence.
After it took over L&K in 1925 - struggling after the collapse in demand for large luxury cars - Skoda Avia's offshoot plant in Poland built versions of engines including the Wright Whirlwind, Bristol Pegasus and Mercury and Mors units, which were fitted into a number of PZL planes for the Polish airforce in the 1920s and '30s. The Czech-built Avia B-534 of 1935, meanwhile, went on to be the standard-issue fighter plane for the pre-war Czechoslovakian airforce, later commandeered by the Luftwaffe.
Skoda's most unusual aero-venture, however, was the collaboration with Austrian engineer Otto Kauba during World War II and the German occupation, under the orders of Hermann Goering. According to histaviation.com, this Prague-based project was initially tasked with creating a pilotless flying bomb, to be designed by Kauba and built by the Skoda Avia works at Plzen (Pilsen). The initial SK VIA prototype was a piloted monoplane with a 105bhp Hirth engine, so unorthodox in its construction that Avia test pilot Petr Siroky refused to fly it until the Gestapo applied pressure. The story goes that Avia did not want to develop or make this plane for the Germans, and Siroky deliberately cut out the engine to crash-land and destroy it; the project was dropped for a while though Kauba did develop further prototypes. Though the pilotless bomber idea was abandoned, the SK VIA did form the basis of the SK 257 fighter plane, which the Luftwaffe commissioned; just five of these were made. Kauba also developed a larger plane, the Daimler-Benz-powered SK V5 fighter capable of 475mph, but this was shelved in favour of research into jet fighters. Further prototypes, SK V6, V7 and V8, were made and used as test beds for different technologies and structural design components, but none made production. The tiny SK V9, the twin-engined SK V10, SK V11 and SK V12 research craft were similarly one-offs, as was the most daring of all, the SK 14 P14 interceptor, with a ramjet powertrain capable of running on diesel oil or coal powder. Skoda Avia was put to work adapting and repairing German aircraft for the remainder of the war, and Kauba fled Prague.
Post-war, the Skoda group of companies was split up and nationalised under Soviet rule. Avia continued, building planes until 1960 (including the difficult-to-fly S-199 used by the Israeli airforce), then concentrating on engines and then solely propeller production from the late 1980s. Avia's plant at Kunovice became Aircraft Industries a.s., going on to build Soviet Jak craft, the L13/L23/L33 seaplanes and the first Czech jet, the L29 Delfin; it continues to make light aircraft and gliders today, as well as engaging in engineering consultancy. Skoda Auto is now owned by Volkswagen, and is currently offering its widest-ever range of cars.
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