Albatros D.Va

The Albatros D.V was a fighter aircraft built by the Albatros Flugzeugwerke and used by the Luftstreitkräfte (Imperial German Air Service) during World War I. The D.V was the final development of the Albatros D.I family and the last Albatros fighter to see operational service. Despite its well-known shortcomings and general obsolescence, approximately 900 D.V and 1,612 D.Va aircraft were built before production halted in April 1918. The D.Va continued in operational service until the end of the war.

With its distinctive plywood-skinned oval section streamlined fuselage, the Albatros D.V entered service in May 1917, but from October 1917 was supplemented in large-scale production by the strengthened Albatros D.Va with different upper wing and aileron control system.

With over 3,000 produced, of which only two survive, in the U.S.A and Australia.

The replica on display at RAF London is painted as a D.V aircraft from a batch of 400 ordered in May 1917. 

This flying replica was built by New Zealand Company The Vintage Aviator Ltd (TVAL) in 2011, and uses an original contemporary Mercedes D.III engine from RAF Museum stocks. It represents an aircraft flown on the Western Front by Jasta 61in 1918.

Flown a number of times in New Zealand and the UK in 2012, it arrived at Hendon in October 2012.