The Zeppelin-Staaken R.VII was six-engined large bomber - a ''
Riesenflugzeug
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 Imperial Germany, German bombers, possessing at least th ...
'' - of Imperial Germany, intended to be less vulnerable than the airships in use at the time.
Development
The R.VII, an incremental improvement on the almost identical
Zeppelin-Staaken R.IV, had two engine pods, each with tandem pusher engines, large enough for some inflight maintenance by flight mechanics housed in cockpits forward of the nacelle engines, driving the large pusher propellers through clutches, gearboxes, and shafts. A further two engines were mounted in the nose of the fuselage, driving a single tractor propeller in a similar fashion.
Operational history
First flown early in 1917, the sole R.VII (R.14/15) was accepted by the ''
Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte
Deutsch ( , ) or Deutsche ( , ) may refer to:
* or : the German language or in particular Standard German, spoken in central European countries and other places
*Old High German language refers to Deutsch as a way to define the primary characteris ...
'' (Imperial German Air Service) on 3 July 1917 and assigned to
Rfa 501
RFA may refer to:
Groups, organizations
* Radio Free Asia, a private news broadcaster and publisher in East Asia, funded in part by the U.S. government
* Renewable Fuels Agency, a former UK renewable fuel regulatory agency
* Renewable Fuels Ass ...
on 29 July 1917. Used in operations on the Western Front, the R.VII had a short operational life, crashing due to a clutch failure and the incorrect actions of a flight mechanic, with the loss of six crew members.
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Operators
*
Specifications (Zeppelin-Staaken R.VII)
Notes
References
*A. K. Rohrbach, "Das 1000-PS Verkehrsflugzeug der Zeppelin-Werke, Staaken," ''Zeitschrift für Flugtechnik und Motorluftschiffahrt'', vol. 12, no. 1 (15 January 1921)
*E. Offermann, W. G. Noack, and A. R. Weyl, "Riesenflugzeuge", in: ''Handbuch der Flugzeugkunde'' (Richard Carl Schmidt & Co., 1927)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeppelin-Staaken R.Vii
Zeppelin-Staaken
1910s German bomber aircraft
Pusher aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1917