Photo from the collection of John Connors
Information collected by Johan Visschedijk on this aircraft...
After Albatros had already gained some experience in building floatplanes in 1913, the designers ventured to build a two-seater flying boat. It had a 100 hp Daimler engine mounted in the fuselage, which drove a two-bladed pusher propeller. Although the flying boat's propulsion concept was fully in line with the development trend of the time, the biplane tested from January 1914 on was not convincing. Although the design was certified to have good flight characteristics, the seaworthiness of the aircraft left a lot to be desired, so further development was stopped.
Information about the designed...In 1912, another designer joined Albatros, but he only developed a single aircraft. It was Karl Rösner, who later went to the aircraft department of the Gothaer Waggonfabrik as chief designer.
Due to the poor results of the seaplane competition in Heiligendamm, the Reichs-Marine-Amt (RMA, Imperial Naval Office) had bought a flying boat from Curtiss in the USA and from Sopwith in England. Now Albatros also wanted to offer a flying boat. So, under Rösner's leadership, the Wal flying boat was created, referred to in the old documents as the Wahl boat.
Since Albatros did not yet had its own shipyard for seaplanes at the time, this boat was built in the Naglo shipyard in Zeuthen. The 100 hp engine of this flying boat was located in the hull and drove a pushing propeller via a shaft gear. Since this type of drive continually led to problems, development had to be abandoned.
Karl Rösner was born on December 18, 1880 in Mährisch-Schönberg in the Sudetengau. After secondary school, he studied mechanical engineering at the Vienna Technical University, which he completed in 1915. Until 1909, Rösner was an assistant at the Vienna State Technical School. Even then, he was very interested in aviation.
On February 2, 1909, Rösner started working as a designer at E. Rumpler in Berlin, where, among other things, Wilhelm Focke-Alberti's duck aircraft was being designed. Since Rumpler was not thinking about designing its own type at the time, Rösner was not satisfied with this job. He left on January 1, 1910. In the spring of 1910, he built his own aircraft together with the C. Kallenbach building cooperative, with which he made his first flights in the autumn of 1910 on the Loddenheide near Münster. In 1911 he took part in various flights, and on May 12, 1912 he went to Albatros as chief designer, where he designed a flying boat.
On September 1, 1913, Rösner became chief designer of seaplane construction at the Gothaer Waggonfabrik, but also participated in the development of landplanes. Between the end of 1913 and the end of World War I, Rösner designed 24 aircraft.
On September 1, 1920, Rösner left the Gothaer Waggonfabrik and went to the Aero-Flugzeugwerke in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he worked as technical director until July 1924. He then went to the Serbian AG for Machinery and Wagon Construction in Krusevac and then to the Ikarus aircraft works in Novisad.
On March 1, 1934, Rösner was able to return to German aircraft construction at the Fieseler aircraft factory (Kassel), and on February 1, 1936, to his old company, the Gothaer Waggonfabrik. But a serious illness prevented him from realizing his plans. At the end of August 1942, he returned to his family in Croatia, where he died on September 1 in Ruma.
