Zeppelin-Lindau Rs.IV

The Zeppelin-Lindau Rs.IV, wrongly called the Dornier Rs.IV after the war, was a Riesenflugzeug, or giant aircraft: an all-metal monoplane flying boat with a stressed-skin hull and fuselage, developed by Claudius Dornier at Zeppelin in Lindau for the Imperial German Navy to fly long-range patrols over the North Sea. The Navy ordered two in January 1918. It was based on the Rs.III but had a narrower hull fitted with sponsons and a stressed-skin structure, and it was a braced parasol monoplane whose four engines sat in push-pull pairs in nacelles large enough to be reached in flight, as the original giant aircraft specification of 1915 required. It was the first seaplane with an all-metal stressed-skin hull and the first to carry Dornier patented sponsons. The first flight was on 12 October 1918, after which it was converted into a passenger aircraft for twenty passengers. The only completed example was scrapped on 17 April 1920 on the orders of the Allied control commission, and the second was never finished.