Arado Ar.96/Avia C.2 Czechoslovak users

 

The Arado Ar.96 was a German single-engined low-wing monoplane made entirely out of metal which was produced not only by Arado Flugzeugwerke, but also by other companies under license. 

One of those was the Czechoslovak Avia which, from 1940 until April 1945 manufactured the type at their factories in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the German-occupied Czech country) together with another Czech airplane manufacturer like Letov. 

As the war ended, many were put into service with the newly re-established Czechoslovak Air Force and, as the type was kept under manufacture after the war with the name of Avia C-2 (numbers show that between August 1945 - when the production line was set up again- and 1950 -when production of the Avia C-2 came to an end- four hundred and twenty six exemplars were manufactured at Avia's factories only. The C-2 was produced in two sub-variants, an unarmed one (C-2) and an armed one (C-2B). The armed variant was equipped with an MG 17 placed at the right side of the engine, had underwing bomb racks for a total of 70 kg (155 lb) of  bombs. Both variants were powered by the Argus 410A engine which powered the original German ones and they were also produced in Czechoslovakia after the war. 

As many of the original Ar.96 were put into use with the Czechoslovak Air Force after the war, and the type was also manufactured massively there after the war, it comes no surprise that it was the main trainer of the Czechoslovak Air Force during the post-war period. They were found to be fully suitable for the basic and advanced trainer roles but also for bomb and night-flying training. 

Thanks to their good flying characteristics, they were also used by the Czechoslovak National Security Corps which employed them more than once during the early 1950s to shot down ballons containing propaganda leaflets. They were also exported to Hungary and Bulgaria.

The C-2 were used by the Czechoslovak Air Force's academy until 12th December 1955 when, they were gradually withdrawn from service and replaced by the Soviet-made Yakovlev Yak-11. The last C-2 was used at Letnany air base in 1958 as a tow airplane.

Sources: 

1. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_Ar_96 (translated)

2. https://www.valka.cz/Arado-Ar-96-t54856 (translated)