Albatros MZ/F.2

This airplane has the honour of perform the first military mission on the skies of Europe. With it we open a new section of the blog dedicated to the pre-world war I airplanes. With what airplane will we open the interwar airplane section? Who knows...

The Albatros MZ/F.2 (MZ stands for Militardoppeldecker) was a licensed version of the French Farman F.III, hence the F.
It, however differed from the original F.III because it had a gondola for the crew and was powered by an Argus in-line engine instead of the Gnôme engine of the original.

As we said, this airplane was the first one to be used in a military operation. On October 15th 1912, during the second Balkan Wars, an order was given in order to gather reconnaissance information about the Turkish army and the disposition of the Adrianopole fortress. Obbeying the order, two airmen, the Lieutenant Radul Milkov and Prodan Tarakchiev performed the first aerial recon mission over Europe (The first recon mission in history had been performed by Italian airmen in Libya one year earlier). The wheels of the airplane were damaged when they landed back at the airfield they had departed from.