Two aircraft were ordered by the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in January 1918.[1] The first flight was made on 12 October 1918 and was converted shortly thereafter into a passenger aircraft sometime between October 1918, following damage sustained during its first flight, and June 1919.[1] When it was modified the pilot's position was moved to the hull instead of in the overhead fuselage in 1919. The sole completed example was scrapped on 17 April 1920 on orders from the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control, after a detailed examination of its construction had been made; the second example was never completed.[1]
Design
Its design was based on the previous Rs.III, differing primarily in having a narrower hull fitted with sponsons and stressed skin structure, with some minor tidying of the design. It was a braced parasol monoplane with the fuselage mounted on the wing above both engine nacelles and hull. The four engines were mounted in push-pull pairs in nacelles large enough to allow in flight access (a requirement of the original Riesenflugzeug giant aircraft type specification by IdFlieg in 1915) between the hull and the wing. These were staggered to allow propeller disks to overlap slightly so as to reduce adverse yaw when an engine was not running.
It had the distinction of being first seaplane to have an all-metal stressed skin hull, and the first seaplane to be fitted with Dornier's patented sponsons.[2][page needed][3][page needed]
^"The (German) Dornier "Giant Flying-Boat"". Flight. Vol. XI, no. 560. September 18, 1919. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved March 28, 2017 – via Flight Global.
^"Some Dornier "Milestones" - The Do. Rs. IV, 1917-18". Flight. December 23, 1920. Retrieved March 28, 2017 – via Flight Global.
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Zuerl, Walter (1941). Deutsche Flugzeug Konstrukteure. München, Germany: Curt Pechstein Verlag.