WWI Aviation books cover art

[Romani]

I don't know where these came from, since I saved them from somebody's else gallery and that site disappeared, seem to be photos of old German plates. I wrote down the captions,


Rumpler CVII and Albatros DIII at 5.000 meters

[Romani]

This one is quite strange. What is a Rumpler DI?

Caption read: End of kurvenkampf (turning fight) Rumpler DI shoots down SPAD.

[Romani]

On a lighter than air note, here are a couple zeppelin paintings

Zeppelin gegen Engeland

[Romani]

And to close the circle, we come back to Africa

Afrikaschiff L 59

[Germanophile-1]

The preceding four plates are from the big volume Unsere Luftstreitkräfte 1914-1918 compiled and edited by Gen. Walter von Eberhardt and published in Berlin in 1930. It is one of the finest books ever done on the German military air arm in WW I.

Peter

[Gregvan]

Hi There,

Thanks, Germanophile-1, for that erudite explanation of where these interesting plates come from - saved me the trouble of answering!

To answer Romani's other question, the Rumpler D.I was the end-product of a lengthy series of experimental single-seat fighter designs from Rumpler. It incorporated many unique technical innovations, and was placed into limited production shortly before the war ended. To quote Peter Grosz (instead of simply plagiarizing): "When the war ended the Rumpler D.I, of which 22 had been completed, still had not passed the military acceptance requirements, although testing began on 2 February 1918. There is little doubt that the basic design was inspired and resulted in outstanding performance...The Rumpler D.I was an exceedingly complex machine whose perfection required time for careful analysis, exhaustive design and testing...The Rumpler D.I was trapped in a never-ending cycle of modification and revision."

Thus, the Rumpler D.I never saw combat in WWI, though Ernst Udet and Robert Ritter von Greim did fly examples in post-war air shows in Bavaria. Peter Grosz did a marvelous "Mini Datafile" on the type which still may be available from Albatros Productions. The artist in Unsere Luftstreitkräfte 1914-1918 used more than a little artistic license when he showed a Rumpler D.I downing a Spad.

[Romani]

Thank you very much for the replies, gentlemen!

I saved the best for the finale

[Romani]

Rumpler CIV 4.000 meters above the Meuse

[Romani]

(delete +10 characters)

[Gregvan]

Here's a nice contemporary image from a German book published, apparently, circa early 1916:


Here's one of the interior illustrations:



Nice work, in my opinion.