The Lublin R-XVI was conceived as a small 4-seater passenger plane, ordered by the Polish Ministry of Communications.

Both designs were partly modeled on a construction of Fokker F.VII, produced under licence by Plage i Laśkiewicz.

The plane was evaluated by the Army as quite successful, and a series of 5 air ambulances were ordered and built in 1935.

Between June 1–4, 1933 the prototype R-XVIb took part in the 2nd International Air Ambulance Contest in Madrid in Spain, and won first place and Maurice Raphaël's Cup.

[1] All R-XVIb's were used from 1935 by the Polish Red Cross (PCK), which operated military ambulances in Poland.

In 1936 they were removed from the registry, but some served longer after repair and change of registration numbers (among others SP-BNO, BNP, BNR).