Some examples were turned over to the victorious Allies for evaluation, although only the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered copies into production which remained in service until the early 1930s.

The Royal Norwegian Army bought two smuggled aircraft from Hansa und Brandenburgische Flugzeug-Werke after the war which remained in service until around 1928.

Hansa-Brandenburg's technical director, Ernst Heinkel, claimed to have sketched the basic design of a monoplane version of the company's successful W.12 biplane floatplane fighter on the back of a wine-list while bored in a cabaret.

[3] The W.29 retained the company's signature plywood slab-sided fuselage configuration with four main longerons and stringers rising aft of the engine supports to elevate the observer's position and improve his field of fire.

[7] Each of the three prototypes was equipped with a different six-cylinder, water-cooled, inline piston engine: the Benz Bz.III, the BMW IIIa and the Mercedes D.III.

[7][8] The third prototype was sent to the Naval Air Station Flanders I (Seeflugstation Flandern I, SFS I) at Zeebrugge in Occupied Belgium in May 1918 for a combat evaluation, although no records about its activities survive.

[9] The first documented combat involving the W.29 occurred on 4 June when four aircraft of the 1st Squadron, SFS I, led by the commander, Oberleutnant Friedrich Christiansen, encountered a British flight of three Felixstowe F2A flying boats searching for submarines, shooting down two and damaging the third.

Two days later Christiansen led five W.29s from the 1st Squadron on a reconnaissance flight over the North Sea and spotted the British submarine HMS C25 surfacing.

The floatplanes dropped to low altitude and machine-gunned the submarine, killing five men and puncturing its ballast tanks so that it was forced to remain on the surface.

Attacks by the aircraft with machine guns and small bombs forced the boats to run for safety in neutral Dutch waters.

[13] The Austro-Hungarian Navy (KuK Kriegsmarine) ordered 25 W.29s on 26 August 1918 to be built by UFAG at its factory in Budapest, Hungary, with delivery to commence before 31 October.

[16] The Hungarian Soviet Republic, the successor state to the Kingdom of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ordered production of the W.29 at UFAG to restart.

Some survivors were sold on the civilian market and used as mail planes, for fish spotting duties and as transports, modified with a four-passenger cabin replacing the rear cockpit.

[21] Two aircraft were bought by Norsk Aeroplanfabrikk of Norway in early 1920, their illegal export covered by the company claiming that they were destroyed in fires.

[24] Hanza-shiki suijō teisatsuki: (ハンザ式水上偵察機, Hansa Type Reconnaissance Floatplane): Modified to use a 200-horsepower (150 kW) license-built Hispano-Suiza 8B V-8 engine.

At some point an exhaust manifold was installed that discharged behind the left wing and provision was made for an auxiliary fuel tank beneath the fuselage.

[27][14] Data from German Aircraft of the First World War [33]General characteristics Performance Armament 1 × 7.9 mm (0.312 in) Parabellum MG14 in rear cockpit