Anatra Anadis

We're back in Russia, and in the World War I in order to bring you another airplane from that country.

The Anatra Anadis was a single-seat fighter variant of the Anatra Anasal developed in 1916.

It was designed by the chief engineer of the Anatra company in Odessa, a French designer named Elisée Alfred Descamps following an order to build a single-seat fighter variant of the Anatra Anasal (AKA Anatra DS) two-seat reconnaissance airplane. It retained the original Anasal two-bay configuration and the fabric-covered wooden construction. It differed from the Anasal in the lack of the observers' post, in the provision made to install a forward firing machine-gun and it was powered by the 150hp Salmson 9U (Canton-Unné) water cooled, radial engine which was replaced by a not specified Vee-eight water-cooled engine.

The prototype was flown for the first time on 23rd October 1916 and was piloted by the factory test pilot, another French named Jean Robinet. He and Descamps planned to modify the Anadis as a two-seater retaining the forward-firing machine gun and adding an extra fuel tank in order to use the Anadis to scape from Russia in the event of the revolution, that was already foreseeable. However that plan was discovered by the Lt. Kononenko an Imperial Russian Army acceptance pilot attached to Anatra, and those modifications were rolled-back and the development continued as a single-seat fighter.

Testing continued until 11th November 1916 with the official report from the Imperial Army claiming that it was "... no inferior to any German aircraft of the same type (sic) and with greater power.". However, despite the good performance reports, not a single airplane was ordered and the project remained on hold at the Odessa factory until 14th October 1917 when, in the middle of the Bolshevik revolution, piloted by the Staff Cpt. N.A. Makarov, it took-off in a planned flight Odessa-Thessaloniki-Rome-Marseilles-Paris and then, theoretically, back to Russia. That flight it's believed to be the original scape route planned by Descamps himself, so it's suspicious to say the least, that he would have returned to Russia.
In the end the airplane took-off, from Odessa, but the engine failed near Iași , Romania, and was forced to land. It's remarkable to note that this flight, Odessa-Iași, was one of the very first long-distance flights ever with almost 300 km. flown.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatra_Anadis
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
3. http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/dianatra.html

Fairey Campania

We continue drawing, this time with the biggest airplane we have drawn yet.

The Fairey Campania was a ship-borne patrol floatplane with twin main floats and backward folding wings. It was the first airplane designed specifically for carrier operations.

When, in the middle of 1916, the Campania was fitted with a forward flight-deck, where they could launch aircraft from, the admiralty issued a specification for a purposely built two-seat reconnaissance aircraft that could operate from ships.
Fairey designed a tractor biplane in February 1917 it was made out of wood and was covered in fabric. The two wings could fold backwards for storage, in order to save space. It was armed with a lewis machine gun placed in the observer cockpit and could also carry up to 6 53kg bombs under the wings or fuselage.

As the trials with the prototypes (which after testing they operated from the Royal Naval Air Service air station of Scapa Flow) were successful, many Campanias were shipped on board of HMS Campania, HMS Nairana and HMS Pegasus seaplane carriers all of them. As the HMS Campania was the only one fitted with a flying deck, only the airplanes operating from that ship took-off using the wheels in the floaters, the rest took-off in the traditional floatplane way (after being deployed in the sea using a crane, obviously).

It didn't achieve any distinguishable record, but served well in it's role as spotter. During the north Russian campaign, in the Russian Civil war, some Campanias from HMS Nairana, took part on what maybe was the first combined air land and sea attack on history joining entente land forces and driving Bolshevik forces away which had been fortified on Modyugski Island. Once the port of Arkhangelsk was taken, the Campanias operated from there.

They were declared obsolet in 1919.