While taxiing trials proved successful, the aircraft lacked sufficient power to fly, and was wrecked in the course of testing on 3 October.

It was built by Wilhelm Kress with the assistance of a 5,000-krone grant from Emperor Franz Josef[1] in an attempt to create the first heavier-than-air flying machine.

The aircraft was constructed as a large, open-truss structure of steel tubing with three sets of wire-braced monoplane wings placed in tandem along its length.

[1][4] The fabric-covered propellers were mounted pusher-fashion on pylons above and on either side of the main truss, between the second and third sets of wings, and were designed to counter-rotate.

[5] When the cost of this proved prohibitive, he purchased an automobile engine already in production which had an output of just 22 kW (30 hp) but weighing nearly twice as much as Kress' calculations allowed for.