- Kārlis Irbītis
Kārlis Irbītis (born
October 14 ,1904 , Lāde civil parish,Valmiera district,Latvia ; diedOctober 13 ,1997 , Saint-Laurent,Quebec ,Canada ) was aLatvia n aeroplane designer.His greatest successes, for the
VEF Factory, were the sports planeVEF I-12 (1935) and the monoplaneVEF I-16 (1939), used as a fighter. AfterWorld War II , when he had emigrated to Canada, he was the designer of the experimental Canadian vertical landing and take-off aeroplane, theCL-84 (1950).VEF-I-16
When the German Army occupied Latvia, they used all possible resources to add to their war machine. This included the military radio YU4 and the aircraft VEF-12 and VEF-16 produced in the VEF Factory, although unfortunately for the
Luftwaffe , only three examples of these two models were available.After the
Soviet occupation of Latvia, the Soviet forces also tested the Latvian fighter. Further information on its future development was classified.ources
* [http://inventions.lza.lv/eng/izgudrotaji/IrbitisK.asp Latvian Academy of Sciences: Inventors of Latvia website - Karlis Irbitis] (in English and Latvian)
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