When Hungary got involved in the second world war, the WM-21 Sólyom
(Falcon) was the only Hungarian designed and manufactured plane in
service with the Hungarian Royal Airforce. It was in widespread service
as reconnaissance plane starting from 1938 onwards. In June of 1941, the
machines failed to make in impression, mainly because of accidents and
technical issues. The planes were diverted to the training role and were
still used as such by May 1945.
The Sólyom story starts in 1927, with the Fokker C.V, of which the
Hungarian Royal Airforce had acquired 76, mostly built under license by
Manfred Weiss (WM). WM improved the C.V, which resulted in the WM-16,
with 18 built in two variants. This WM-16 paved the way for the WM-21,
of which 128 examples were built.
