The C.II had much lower drag than comparable aircraft of its time. It featured a
monocoque fuselage built with an outer skin of two layers of thin plywood strips at an angle to each other (known as a
Wickelrumpf, or "wrapped body" design). This had both lower drag and better strength per weight than typical of the time, but it was relatively slow and expensive to build. (This approach was further developed in the
de Havilland Mosquito of World War II.) The deep fuselage completely filled the vertical gap between the wing panel center sections, eliminating any need for
cabane struts commonly used in biplanes, and gave the aircraft its "whale" nickname. Struts and wires were reduced, without suffering the weight penalty of cantilever wings, like those used on the pioneering all-metal
Junkers J 1 of late 1915. There was even some attempt to fair the wings into the fuselage, to eliminate dead air space, a feature prominently missing from the
Schneider Trophy contestants of the following decade. The engineer in charge of the design was Tantzen, who was a student of
Ludwig Prandtl, the founder of mathematical aerodynamics and the one to introduce the concept of
boundary layer. The C.II was powered by a single
Mercedes D III, providing a top speed of , a ceiling of and a flight endurance of four hours. ==Operational history==