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Rumpler C.I

1915 WORLD WAR 1

History

Austrian-born engineer Edmund Rumpler founded his company Rumpler Flugzeugwerke in 1909 and began to manufacture replicas of the "Etrich Taube" reconnaissance aircraft. With the start of the war in Europe (World War I, 1914-1918), in time he turned to a military reconnaissance biplane designed for the German military in-house. As the war paid tribute to Germany, Rumpler developed several notable designs that were used by the Luftwaffe ("Air Force") and the Navy, among others.

As both sides of the conflict experience the horrors of trench warfare in depth, what was once fluid warfare has become so mired that a variety of weapons have been considered and developed to drive the enemy out of position. The aircraft arrived as a principled killing machine, and Rumpler worked to achieve this goal, designing the 1915 "Rumpler C.I".

Externally, the CI is a conventionally constructed biplane with upper and lower wing assemblies connected by reinforced struts and cables. The engine was mounted on the front of the conical plate side fuselage, the rear was covered by a vertical tail and triangular horizontal plane.

Directly behind the engine are two open air cockpits with tandem seats, the pilot in front and the observer/gunner in the back. The landing gear is held in place and manages two support wheels, while the stern is supported by a simple skid.

Power is provided by a 160-horsepower, liquid-cooled Mercedes D.III inline engine, delivering a top speed of 94 mph at an operating altitude of 16,580 feet. Endurance is about four hours of flight time.

The construction is traditional, using wood and canvas, which allows the fuselage to withstand a fair amount of abuse before yielding.

As Armed Scouts (or "Combat Scouts"), the first production models were equipped with 7.92mm Parabellum MG14 series machine guns mounted on a trainable mount ("Schneider Ring") in the rear cockpit. This position allows the tail gunner to protect the aircraft's key "six" position from incoming interception threats. The ring mount has some flexibility in managing the range of the machine gun, mainly limited by the long tail structure and rear hull. Later production models subsequently introduced fixed forward-firing 7.92mm LMG 08/15 series machine guns - linked to "breaker" gearboxes - to provide pilots with their own forward-facing weapons.

The machine gun was deflected to the port side of the forward hull, while the circuit breaker device allowed firing through the rotating propeller blades. As a result, C.I can now attack targets in front of the aircraft, be they enemy aircraft, balloons or ground targets.

For tactical bombing, the C.I could be further equipped with underwing guns up to 100 kg, which affected performance to some extent. Therefore, C.I can be used for different types of tasks as needed.

C.I was launched in 1915 and used to perform well in a wide range of services. Pilots appreciated its powerful yet forgiving handling characteristics, and the entire system provided a much-needed boost to German reconnaissance groups that had to contend with capable Allied pilots and their mounts. The two share the workload and provide two sets of "eyes in the air" to identify key enemy positions, maneuvers and targets, while scanning the sky for potential aerial threats and observation balloons over the battlefield. Aircraft like the C.I have proven so vital to German aviation services that they are scattered across multiple production lines outside the Rumpler factory, including four other German companies.

The aircraft was also used in eastern operations by the Ottoman Air Force inventory.

Rumpler C. I has branched into two notable variants derived from base C. The Scout model I produced dropped before the line was discontinued. Includes "C. Ia", delivered with Argus As. The 180 hp engine produced by the III, possibly containing a C. II designation aircraft, is poorly understood. Rumpler also developed and manufactured separate C.I-based training mounts for the Luftwaffe for training pilots and artillery.

The differences are the absence of the gun mounting ring on the rear viewing station, and the use of the Benz Bz. 150hp Series III engine (Mercedes required for frontline warfare). The C.I also formed the basis for the "Rumpler 6B" family of seaplanes (detailed elsewhere on this page), 88 of which served with the German Navy during the war.

Surprisingly, the Rumpler C.I, which debuted in 1915, would enter service in early 1918a heinous feat considering the rapid advance of aerial engineering during the conflict. It is not uncommon for some newly built aircraft to have a useful life of only a few months before being replaced by a more powerful model, which is a stopgap measure of war.

Poland, Latvia and Yugoslavia became post-war operators of Rumpler C.I to ensure its legacy extends beyond the war.