WOW058 – GOTHA

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Description

Description

WOW058 The Gotha.1V bomber was one of a series of bombers built by Gothaer
Waggonfabrik which started with the G.11 in 1915. After several improvements
the G.1V was introduced and designed to replace the very expensive Zeppelin
bomber. One of the improvements was a ‘gun tunnel’ which was built into the
aircraft fuselage, allowing the gunner to fire his machine gun fitted to the
top of the fuselage right through the aircraft at enemy planes below him!
The nose area was angled downwards to make the aircraft more aerodynamic and
ailerons were added to the lower wings to improve performance.
A total of 232 MK 1V Gotha’s are thought to have been made with 23 of them
bombing the UK in May 1917 causing widespread panic amongst the civilian
population.
The Gotha was a very large aircraft for its time with a wingspan of over 77
feet and a fuselage length of 40 feet, making this the largest WW1 aircraft
we have made so far.
Powered by 2 engines the Gotha was capable of 85 MPH and could carry a 500
Kilo bomb load with a crew of 3 being the normal configuration.
Our aircraft ‘Morotas’ named after the first letters of its 3 crew crash
landed in Belgium in 1917 and hit a farm house, nothing else is known about
its operational history. However lots of photos were taken of it after the
crash landing and as such it is a very well documented aircraft from this
period.