Riesenflugzeug Siemens Schuckert VIII 1918

A ''Riesenflugzeug'' (plural ''Riesenflugzeuge'', German for "giant aircraft"), sometimes colloquially referred to in English as an R-plane, was any member of a class of large

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...

s, possessing at least three

aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years ma ...

s, although usually four or more engines. These were large multi-engine aircraft capable of flying several hours with larger bomb loads than the smaller ''Grossflugzeug'' bombers such as the Gotha G.V. Some of the earliest ''Riesenflugzeuge'' were given G-type designations before being redesignated, but a major distinction was that the requirements for the R-type specified that the engines had to be serviceable in flight. As a result, designs fell into two groups - those with the engines mounted centrally inside the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

using gearboxes and

driveshaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power and torque and rotation, usually used to connec ...

s to transfer the power to

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

s mounted between the wings, and those with conventional powerplant installations mounted in large nacelles or the nose of the aircraft where engineers would be stationed for each group of engines. The transmission of power from the centrally mounted engines to the remote, most often wing-mounted propellers proved troublesome in practice and most operational examples of ''Riesenflugzeug''-class aircraft were of the second type, as with the all-direct-drive Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI. The ''Idflieg'' (''Inspektion der Fliegertruppen'' (Inspection of the Air Force), the German Army department responsible for military aviation), assigned the letter R to this type of aircraft, which would then be followed by a period and a

Roman numeral Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, ea ...

type number. Seaplanes were denoted by the addition of a lower case "s" after the "R" in the designation. The ''Riesenflugzeuge'' were the largest aircraft of World War I. In comparison, the largest equivalent Allied aircraft were the

Sikorsky Ilya Muromets The Sikorsky ''Ilya Muromets'' (russian: Сикорский Илья Муромец) (Sikorsky S-22, S-23, S-24, S-25, S-26 and S-27) were a class of Russian pre-World War I large four-engine commercial airliners and military heavy bombers used ...

The first successful large aircraft, and the inspiration for the German ''Grossflugzeug'' and ''Riesenflugzeuge'' bombers with a span of , the

Caproni Ca.4 The Caproni Ca.4 was an Italian heavy bomber of the World War I era. Development After designing the successful Ca.3, Gianni Caproni of the Caproni works designed a much bigger aircraft. It shared the unusual layout of the Caproni Ca.3, bein ...

with a span of , the one-off

Felixstowe Fury The Felixstowe F.4 Fury ( serial ''N123''), also known as the Porte Super-Baby, was a large British, five-engined triplane flying-boat designed by John Cyril Porte at the Seaplane Experimental Station, Felixstowe, inspired by the Wanamaker Tri ...

with a span of and the Handley Page V/1500 with a span of ). The Riesenflugzeuge that bombed

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

during the First World War were larger than any of the German bombers in use during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

other than the span

Junkers Ju 390 The Junkers Ju 390 was a German long-range derivative of the Junkers Ju 290 aircraft, intended to be used as a heavy transport aircraft, maritime patrol aircraft and long-range bomber. It was one of the aircraft designs submitted for the abortive ...

, which was only used as a transport - while the

Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 ''Condor'', also known as ''Kurier'' to the Allies ( English: Courier), was a German all-metal four-engined monoplane originally developed by Focke-Wulf as a long-range airliner. A Japanese request for a long-range mariti ...

had a span of . The largest built, the Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII of 1918 had a wingspan of . It was not until sixteen years later that an aircraft with a larger wingspan, the Soviet Tupolev ''Maksim Gorky'' eight-engined monoplane was built with a wingspan. The ''Riesenflugzeuge'' were operational from 1915 to 1919 and most of them were built as "one-off" aircraft.

List of aircraft

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* * *

External links

*{{cite journal , date=September 18, 1919 , title=The (German) Dornier "Giant Flying-Boat" , format=PDF , journal=

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

, volume=XI , issue=38 , id=No. 560 , page=1258 , url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1919/1919%20-%201256.html , accessdate=January 12, 2011 Brief contemporary technical description of the Dornier Rs.III or Rs.IV, with rough diagrams.
"The Four-engine Giant"
''Notes on German Bombers'' in 1918 issue of ''Flight''

in 1919 issue of ''Flight''

in 1919 issue of ''Flight'' 1910s German bomber aircraft
Flyingmachines.ru's photo page of many WW I German R-class bombers