Schoettler I
The Schoettler I was one of the first aircraft constructed in China, albeit with a German designer. It was a two-seat, single engine biplane, first flown in mid-summer 1923. Design and development In late 1923 Flight reported on what was claimed to be the first successful aircraft constructed in China. It was designed by the German engineer Leopold Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Schoettler (born April 7, 1881, in Bruchhausen-Vilsen, Germany; died September 27, 1948) but the only major components imported from Europe were the engine, instruments, wheels and dope for the fabric covering; everything else was locally produced from local materials by workers without aviation experience or modern machinery. Work on it began in the summer of 1922. The Schoettler I was a conventional European style two seat tractor biplane, rather similar to the German Aviatik B.II and Albatros B.II designs, with equal span two bay wings. These were mounted with 2° of dihedral and 597 mm, almost 2 ft, of stagger. The gap between the upper and lower planes was , maintained by parallel pairs of aerofoil section struts and wire bracing. The unswept wings had a constant chord of with blunt wing tips and ailerons on both upper and