The B-534's reputation is mixed. To most people, the Avia was a national pride, a modern plane for its time with sleek design, and with a looming German threat, a fair match against the Bf-109s (original models). And while it certainly is a looker, and it did show everyone in the 1937 Zurich Air Races that it was a capable biplane around - getting all second places, behind the 109 - the story behind it is a bit darker. When the plane was being tested during trials, Avia and its owner company, Škoda, were competing against 3 other design bureaus. While at first glance it might have seemed like a fair fight that the superior design won, reality is that the B-534 was quite flawed, and Škoda utilized its monopoly over most branches of industry to get the contract for themselves. This included bribing material suppliers to cut their deliveries to competitors, and what's worse, signing a contract with Hispano-Suiza, making Škoda officially the only legal licensed producers of their powerplants in the country. The competing bureaus that already counted on receiving the French engines now got kicked in the shin and had to do with inferior domestic engines, offering only 60% of the horsepower of the HS12 Ybrs. Nevertheless, the trial results were pretty close, and had the other companies have access to the same engine, the B-534 would likely be forgotten by history. It's reputation also isn't helped by the fact that it had a tendency to deform its upper wing during high speeds that would cause it to enter a lethal dive. When the army announced the B-534 would now also serve as a "battleplane" (CAS), which would include dive bombing, in a typical Czech fashion, Avia's engineers would sneak in under the cover of the night, fix the faulty wings, and then act like nothing happened.