History:

The Rumpler C.IV was one of the outstanding high altitude reconnaissance aircraft of World War I, and it was produced in substantial numbers during 1917 and 1918. Preceded by the C.1 and C.III biplanes, the C.IV had excellent performance, and it could fly higher than most Allied fighters of the time. In addition, it was able to outrun some of them in a shallow dive, making these aircraft extremely popular with their crews. They served throughout the remainder of the war, and a few survived to be used as civilian airplanes in the immediate postwar period.

The Book:

This softcover book follows the traditional Windsock Datafile formula, including numerous excellent quality photos, some superb 1/72 and 1/48 scale drawings, and color illustrations of eight different airplanes. The book is actually a sequel to the original Datafile C.IV book by Peter M. Grosz, who wrote the original Datafile many years ago. This one, however, has been updated with new drawings, new photos, and four pages of color photos of a semi-restored C.IV in Germany, one of two C.IVs in existence.

Aimed primarily at the modeler and historian, this book would be very helpful to both, as there are, according to Burns, kits of the C.IV by HR Model, Joystick, MAI, Merlin, and Skybirds in 1/72 scale, and J&L and Sierra in 1/48 scale. Other available kits are listed in the appendix. I’ve not seen any of these kits, but any of them should be useful in building a model of this significant aircraft. I need to find one.

If you have any interest in World War I aircraft, this book is a “must-have.” The only thing the author could have added would have been illustrations of the Taube, C.I, and C.III’s, which were mentioned in the text but not pictured. But it’s still worth getting, especially since somebody will probably issue a kit of it in the near future, hopefully.

Thanks to Albatros Publications and John Noack of IPMS for the review copy.