Nieuport IV

The Nieuport IV was a French sporting, training and reconnaissance monoplane of the early 1910s, produced by the company Edouard Nieuport founded in 1909. The first aircraft were built in 1911 and production continued well into the First World War in Russia. The IV.G was one of the principal aircraft of the Imperial Russian Air Service in its formative years, with roughly 300 built locally by the Russo-Baltic Wagon Works and Shchetinin. Pyotr Nesterov flew a IV.G over Kiev on 27 August 1913 to perform the first loop ever made, and was arrested for risking government property until Adolphe Pegoud repeated the feat in France. Sweden was given a IV.G in 1912, becoming one of the first aircraft of its air force, and Japan flew one in the Tsingtao campaign in 1914. A Gnome rotary engine of 75 kilowatts powered the aircraft.