AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 27 / 305

Plate 27 of 305 · Great War · Twin-engined biplane bomber

AEG G.IV

G.IV 574/18, painted as G.IV 574/18, the only surviving German twin-engined aircraft of the First World War, shipped to Canada as a war trophy in 1919 and displayed at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa: a three-seat biplane bomber with a slab-sided fuselage, an open gunner’s cockpit in the nose and another behind the wings, two Mercedes D.IVa six-cylinder engines with car-type radiators and two-bladed propellers between the wings, equal-chord upper and lower wings with overhanging balanced ailerons, a tall fin and rudder, twin-wheel main undercarriages and a tail skid: printed five-colour night lozenge fabric on the wings, tail and rear fuselage, a charcoal plywood nose, a large white ‘IV’ and black crosses with thin white outlines on the fuselage sides and under the wings, black struts and varnished propellers, as photographed in Ottawa (no AEG G.IV is preserved in a UK museum; shape from an airwar.ru three-view; engines shown fitted as in the 2011–12 photographs; the lozenge layout is an approximation and the crosses on the upper wing, which no photograph shows, follow the drawing).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G.IV 574/18, the only surviving German twin-engined aircraft of the First World War, shipped to Canada as a war trophy in 1919 and displayed at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa: a three-seat biplane bomber with a slab-sided fuselage, an open gunner’s cockpit in the nose and another behind the wings, two Mercedes D.IVa six-cylinder engines with car-type radiators and two-bladed propellers between the wings, equal-chord upper and lower wings with overhanging balanced ailerons, a tall fin and rudder, twin-wheel main undercarriages and a tail skid: printed five-colour night lozenge fabric on the wings, tail and rear fuselage, a charcoal plywood nose, a large white ‘IV’ and black crosses with thin white outlines on the fuselage sides and under the wings, black struts and varnished propellers, as photographed in Ottawa (no AEG G.IV is preserved in a UK museum; shape from an airwar.ru three-view; engines shown fitted as in the 2011–12 photographs; the lozenge layout is an approximation and the crosses on the upper wing, which no photograph shows, follow the drawing). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.0 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (G.IV); engine, crew and dimensions are for the G.IV 574/18 modelled here.

History

The G.IV

AEG, the great Berlin electrical company, began building aircraft in 1910 and from 1915 produced a series of twin-engined Grossflugzeuge, or G-types, for the German Army Air Service. The G.IV, which appeared in the autumn of 1916, was the most successful of them: a three-seat biplane with a fuselage of welded steel tube, a novelty at the time, covered in plywood at the nose and fabric behind, two six-cylinder Mercedes D.IVa engines between the wings, and gunners’ cockpits in the nose and behind the wings.

Production aircraft reached the front early in 1917, and about 320 were built. The G.IV was smaller and shorter-ranged than the Gotha bombers that raided London, carrying around 400 kg of bombs, so it was used mainly against targets close behind the lines: railway stations, depots and camps in France and Flanders, and on the Romanian, Macedonian and Italian fronts. Its sturdy construction made it popular with its crews.

As Allied fighters made daylight raids too costly, the G.IV turned increasingly to night bombing. On the Italian front crews flew several short sorties a night against Padua and the railways behind the Piave front, and one of its pilots, Hermann Köhl, went on in 1928 to make the first east–west aeroplane crossing of the North Atlantic. Only one G.IV survives, in Canada; none is in a UK museum.

This airframe

G.IV 574/18

574/18The airframe modelled

G.IV 574/18 was allotted to Canada as a war trophy after the Armistice and shipped across the Atlantic in 1919. Its movements over the next forty years are poorly recorded, and its original 260 hp Mercedes engines were lost. Between 1968 and 1969 it was restored by No. 6 Repair Depot of the Royal Canadian Air Force at Trenton, Ontario, with lower-powered Mercedes engines in place of the originals, and it has belonged to what is now the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa, since 1970. The model shows it as photographs of it there do: printed five-colour night lozenge fabric on the wings, tail and rear fuselage, a charcoal plywood nose, a large white ‘IV’ and black crosses with thin white outlines on the fuselage sides, black crosses under the lower wing, black struts and wheels and varnished two-bladed propellers. Its shape comes from a three-view drawing checked against the photographs. The engines are shown fitted, as in photographs from 2011 and 2012, although they were out of the aircraft in 2025; the lozenge layout is an approximation, and the crosses on top of the upper wing, which no photograph shows, follow the drawing.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The only surviving German twin-engined aircraft of the First World War, G.IV 574/18, is at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa. None is in a UK museum.

All 305 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.