CONTRAIL
1/72 SCALE ZEPPELIN STAAKEN R.VI WW1 GERMAN BOMBER VACUFORM KIT
UNBUILT PLASTIC MODEL KIT INVENTORIED
100% COMPLETE INCLUDES ORIGINAL DECALS AND INSTRUCTIONS
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS PLEASE ASK
ME BEFORE BIDDING / PURCHASING I WANT EVERYONE TO BE 100% SATISFIED WITH NO
SURPRISES OR MIS-UNDERSTANDINGS
IF YOU ARE BUYING MULTIPLE KITS FROM ME AT THE
SAME TIME (OR EXPECT TO IN THE NEAR TERM) THEN LET ME KNOW AND I WILL COMBINE
ALL INTO A SINGLE SHIPMENT AND ADJUST THE FINAL INVOICE TO REFLECT THE MOST
ECONOMICAL SHIPPING METHOD AVAILABLE TO YOUR ADDRESS-----------------------------
Additional Information from
Internet Encyclopedia
The Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI was a
four-engined German biplane strategic bomber of World War I, and the only
Riesenflugzeug ("giant aircraft") design built in any quantity.
The R.VI was the most numerous
of the R-bombers built by Germany, and also among the earliest closed-cockpit
military aircraft (the first being the Russian Sikorsky Ilya Muromets). The
bomber was reputedly the largest wooden aircraft to be produced in any quantity
during World War I, with only the Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII prototype bomber of
19161919 being larger, with the Staaken R.VI's wingspan of 42.2 m (138 ft)
nearly equaling that of the World War II Boeing B-29 Superfortress, although
significantly less than the 48 m (157 ft) span of the Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII.
In September 1914, at the start
of World War I, Ferdinand von Zeppelin visualised the concept of a
Riesenflugzeug (R) bomber, to be larger than the then-nascent Friedel-Ursinus
twin-engined military aircraft. Using engineers from the Robert Bosch GmbH, he
created the Versuchsbau Gotha-Ost (VGO) consortium in a rented hangar at the
Gotha factory. Alexander Baumann became his chief engineer, although later the
team included other noted engineers including Zeppelin's associate Claudius
Dornier, the 1915 pioneer of all-metal aircraft construction in Hugo Junkers
and Baumann's protogé Adolph Rohrbach. Almost all of these Zeppelin-Staaken
Riesenflugzeug designs used some variation of either pusher configuration
and/or push-pull configuration in their engine layout, orientation and
placement of their powerplants.
The first Riesenflugzeug built
was the VGO.I flying in April 1915, using three engines; two pusher and one
tractor, with a 42.2 metres (138 feet 5 inches) span, four-bay interplane strut
layout for its slightly swept-back leading edge biplane configuration,
maintained throughout the entire Zeppelin-Staaken R-series of aircraft during
World War I. The VGO.I was built for the Marine-Fliegerabteilung (Imperial
German naval Air service) and served on the Eastern Front Later modified with
two extra engines, it crashed during tests at Staaken. A similar machine, the
VGO.II was also used on the Eastern Front.
Baumann was an early expert in
light-weight construction techniques and placed the four engines in nacelles
mounted between the upper and lower wing decks to distribute the loads to save
weight in the wing spars.
The next aircraft, the VGO.III
was a six-engined design[3] The 160 hp Maybach engines were paired to drive the
three propellers. It served with Riesenflugzeug Abteilung (Rfa) 500.
In 1916 VGO moved to the Berlin
suburb of Staaken, to take advantage of the vast Zeppelin sheds there. The
successor to the VGO III became the Staaken R.IV (IdFlieg number R.12/15), the
only "one-off" Zeppelin-Staaken R-type to survive World War I,
powered by a total of six engines, driving three propellers: a tractor
configuration system in the nose and two pusher-mount nacelle mounts between
the wings. By the autumn of 1916, Staaken was completing its R.V, the R.VI
prototype, and R.VII versions of the same design, and Idflieg selected the R.VI
for series production over the 6-engined R.IV and other Riesenflugzeug designs,
primarily those of Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG.
With four direct-drive engines
in a tandem push-pull arrangement, and a fully enclosed cockpit, the R.VI
design required none of the complex gearboxes of other R-types. Each R.VI
bomber cost 557,000 marks and required the support of a 50-man ground crew. The
R.VI required a complex 18-wheel undercarriage consisting of twin nosewheels
and a quartet of four-wheeled groupings for its main gear to support its
weight, and carried two mechanics in flight, seated between the engines in open
niches cut in the center of each nacelle. The bombs were carried in an internal
bomb bay located under the central fuel tanks, with three racks each capable of
holding seven bombs. The R.VI was capable of carrying the 1000 kg PuW bomb.
Although designed by
Versuchsbau, because of the scope of the project, the production R.VI's were
manufactured by other firms: seven by Schütte-Lanz using sheds at Flugzeugwerft
GmbH Staaken, Berlin; six by Automobil und Aviatik A.G. (Aviatik) (the original
order was for three); and three by Albatros Flugzeugwerke. 13 of the production
models were commissioned into service before the armistice and saw action.
One R.VI was as a float-equipped
seaplane for the Marine-Fliegerabteilung (Imperial German Naval Air Service),
with the designation Type L and s/n 1432, using Maybach engines. After the
first flight on 5 September 1917 the Type "L" crashed during testing
on June 3, 1918. The Type 8301, of which four were ordered and three delivered,
was developed from the R.VI by elevating the fuselage above the lower wing for
greater water clearance, eliminating the bomb bays, and enclosing the open gun
position on the nose.
The special "R.30/16"
test aircraft
R.VI serial number R.30/16 was
the earliest known supercharged aircraft to fly, with a fifth engine - a
Mercedes D.II - installed in the central fuselage, driving a Brown-Boveri
four-stage supercharger at some 6,000 rpm. This enabled the R.30/16 to climb to
an altitude of 19,100 feet (5,800 m).[4] The idea of supercharging an
aircraft's propeller-driving piston engines with an extra powerplant used
solely to power a supercharger was not attempted again by Germany until later
in World War II, when both the Dornier Do 217P and Henschel Hs 130E
experimental bomber designs each revived the idea as the Höhen-Zentrale-Anlage
system. The R.30/16 aircraft was later fitted with four examples of one of the
first forms of variable-pitch propellers, believed to have been
ground-adjustable only.[1]
Operational service
The R.VI equipped two
Luftstreitkräfte (Imperial German Army Air Service) units,
Riesenflugzeug-Abteilung (Rfa) 500 and Rfa 501, with the first delivered June
28, 1917.
The units first served on the
Eastern Front, based at Alt-Auz and Vilua in Kurland until August 1917. Almost
all missions were flown at night with 770 kg (1,698 lb) bomb loads, operating
between 6,500 and 7,800 feet (2,000 and 2,400 m) altitude. Missions were of
three to five hours' duration.
Rfa 501 transferred to Ghent,
Belgium, to attack France and Great Britain, arriving September 22, 1917, at
Sint-Denijs-Westrem airdrome. Rfa 501 later moved its base to Scheldewindeke
airdrome south of group headquarters at Gontrode, while Rfa 500 was based at
Castinne, France, with its primary targets French airfields and ports.
Rfa 501, with an average of five
R.VI's available for missions, conducted 11 raids on Great Britain between
September 28, 1917, and May 20, 1918, dropping 27,190 kg (27 long tons; 30
short tons) of bombs in 30 sorties. Aircraft flew individually to their targets
on moonlit nights, requesting directional bearings by radio after takeoff, then
using the River Thames as a navigational landmark. Missions on the 340-mile
(550 km) round trip lasted seven hours. None were lost in combat over Great
Britain (compared to 28 Gotha G bombers shot down over England), but two
crashed returning to base in the dark.
Four R.VI's were shot down in
combat (one-third of the operational inventory), with six others destroyed in
crashes, of the 13 commissioned during the war. Six of the 18 eventually built
survived the war or were completed after the armistice.
Discovered crash site
Very little remains of these
giant bombers, although nearly a century after the end of World War I amateur
historians of the "Poelcapelle 1917 Association vzw" working in
Poelkapelle, northeast of Ypres, identified a wreck that was found in 1981 by
Daniel Parrein, a local farmer who was plowing his land. For a while it was
thought that the wreck was that of French ace Georges Guynemer's SPAD S.XIII;
however that was discounted when repair tools were found at the site, and
further research pointed that the engine was a Mercedes D.IVa, possibly of a
Gotha G bomber. A comparison of recovered parts was inconclusive, since the
parts were common to a number of aircraft other than the Gotha G.
In 2007 the researchers, Piet
Steen with some help of Johan Vanbeselaere, finally made a conclusive
identification after visiting one of the few partial specimens (the distinctive
engine nacelles) in a Kraków air museum. With the help of the Polish aviation
historians, parts were identified as those of Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI R.34/16, which
crashed on 21 April 1918 after a mission against the Royal Air Force airfield
at Saint-Omer, France. The R.VI was shot down, apparently by anti-aircraft fire
of the British 2nd Army, while trying to cross the front line, killing all
seven crew members.
Variants
The first true production
Zeppelin-Staaken Riesenflugzeug was the R.VI. This giant aircraft was powered
either by four 245hp (183KW) Maybach MbIV engines or four 260hp(194KW) Mercedes
D.IVa engines. The fuselage was similar to the previous aircraft but the
cockpit was extended forwards, enclosed and glazed with a gunners cockpit in
the extreme nose. Other improvements included aluminium alloy structure in the
triple finned biplane tail unit, which was built with inverse camber to improve
the stabilising downforce. Eighteen R.VIs were built serialled 'R25' to 'R39'
and 'R52' to 'R54' all except 'R30', which was used exclusively as a
supercharged engine test-bed, saw service in the Luftstreitkräfte with Rfa500
and Rfa 501 on the western front stationed in the Ghent area. Air raids on
England by R.VIs began on 17 September 1917. Many air raids attributed to Gotha
bombers were, in fact, carried out by Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI or R.XIV bombers,
with direct hits on the Royal Hospital Chelsea with the first 1,000kg bomb
dropped on England, on 16/17 February 1918. St Pancras Station was attacked the
next night. During the campaign from 18 December 1917 to 20 May 1918 the R.VIs
of Rfa501 made eleven raids dropping 27,190kg (28tons) of bombs. Eighteen
built.
Zeppelin-Staaken R.VII
Differing little from the R.IV,
the R.VII had a revised arrangement of struts in the tail unit. The sole R.VII,
serialled R 14/15, crashed during its delivery flight to the front line. One
built.
Zeppelin-Staaken R.XIV
The R.XIV closely resembled
previous Zeppelin-Staaken Riesenflugzeug differing only in engine installation
and details. The five Maybach MbIV engines were arranged as push-pull pairs in
the nacelles, with the engineer accommodated between the engines, and a single
tractor engine in the nose. Three R.XIVs were built, serialled R 43/16 to R
45/16, of which R 43/16 was shot down by Capt. Archibald Buchanan Yuille of No.
151 Squadron RAF.
Zeppelin-Staaken R.XV
The R.XV also carried on the
five engine layout of the R.XIV but introduced a large central fin in the tail
unit. Three R.XVs were built, serialled R 46/16 to R 48/16 but there is no
evidence that they carried out operational flights.
Zeppelin-Staaken Type
"L" Seaplane
This aircraft was essentially an
R.VI fitted with large 13 m (42 ft 8 in) long duralumin floats. Allocated the
serial no. 1432 by the Kaiserliche Marine the aircraft was wrecked during
trials. One built.
Zeppelin-Staaken Type 8301
Seaplane
In a further attempt to develop
a useful large seaplane for the Kaiserliche Marine, Zeppelin-Staaken used R.VI
wings mated to an all new fuselage, which incorporated the large central fin of
the R.XV, suspended midway between the mainplanes, all supported by floats similar
to the 'Type "L"'. Three were built, serialled 8301, 8303 and 8304,
of which 8301 was also tested with a land undercarriage, the existence of 8302
has not been confirmed.
German Empire
Luftstreitkräfte Imperial
German Air Service
Riesenflugzeugabteilung 500
(Rfa500)
Riesenflugzeugabteilung 501
(Rfa501)
Marine-Fliegerabteilung
Imperial German Naval Air Service
Ukrainian People's Republic
One
(R-39/16) - Ukrainian Air force. Crashed on August 4, 1919