History
The Aero A.100 was a biplane light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft built in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. It was the final step in a design lineage that extended back to the Aero A.11 a decade earlier. A.100s remained in service throughout World War II and for a few years postwar.
Design and development
Development of the A.100 was in response to a Czechoslovak Air Force requirement of 1932[citation needed] for a uniform replacement for the Aero A.230s, Aero Ap.32s, and Letov Š.16s light bombers and reconnaissance aircraft then in service.[2] Work began with a further revision of the Aero A.30, the Aero A.430, which incorporated little of the original designs from which it had been evolved and was soon redesignated Aero A.100, in a new numbering sequence just introduced by Aero.[2][1]
The A.100 was a single-engined biplane of mixed wood and metal construction with a fixed conventional landing gear.[3][4] The aircraft’s fuselage was elliptical section, and had a steel tube structure covered in duralumin panels. The unequal-span wings were of wooden construction with fabric covering.[3][4] Of standard biplane configuration, the A.100 was a somewhat ungainly-looking aircraft which was obsolescent by the time of its first flight in 1933, becoming a member of the final generation of biplane military aircraft to be designed in Europe.