Albatros Flugzeugwerke GmbH Albatros D.V is a fighter aircraft of WW1

Operational history

The D.V entered service with the German Air Force in May 1917 but losses attributed to structural failures of the lower wing occurred. The aviation historian Jon Guttman said "Within the month Idflieg was doing belated stress testing and concluding, to its dismay, that the D.V’s sesquiplane wing layout was even more vulnerable than that of its predecessor". The outboard sections of the D.V upper wing also suffered failures, requiring additional wire bracing and the fuselage sometimes cracked during rough landings. Against these problems, the D.V offered very little improvement in performance. Front line pilots were considerably dismayed and many preferred the older D.III. Manfred von Richthofen was critical of the new aircraft in a July 1917 letter, where he described the D.V as "so obsolete and so ridiculously inferior to the English that one can't do anything with this aircraft". British tests of a captured D.V revealed that the aircraft was slow to manoeuvre, heavy on the controls and tiring to fly