Albatros Flugzeugwerke GmbH 
Albatros D.V  WW1 Fighter
Number built c. 2,500 
First flight April 1917

The Albatros D.V is a fighter aircraft of the German aircraft manufacturer Albatros Flugzeugwerke. It was the final development of the Albatros D.I family and the last Albatros fighter to see operational service with the Luftstreitkräfte (Imperial German Air Service) during the First World War. The D.V was developed from the D.III during early 1917. Sharing many similarities to its predecessor, the most visible change was its new elliptical cross-section fuselage. The D.V was brought into service in May 1917 but early operations were plagued by structural failures of the lower wing. With its limited performance improvements this resulted in pilots expressing their preference for the older D.III. Albatros produced the improved D.Va with modifications for greater structural strength, although some structural concerns remained.

Design and development

In April 1917, Albatros received an order from Inspektion der Fliegertruppen () for an improved version of the D.III. The design process was headed by the aeronautical engineer Robert Thelen, the company's chief designer at Johannisthal. Development proceeded at a rapid pace, the resulting D.V prototype performed its maiden flight late in April 1917. This prototype retained the standard rudder of the Johannisthal-built D.III; subsequent production aircraft used the enlarged rudder featured on D.IIIs built by the Ostdeutsche Albatroswerke (OAW), in what was known as the independent city of Schneidemühl. The D.V had a larger spinner and ventral fin and closely resembled the D.III with the same 127 kW (170 hp) Mercedes D.IIIa engine. The most notable difference was a new, elliptical cross-section fuselage which was 32 kg (71 lb) lighter than the partially flat-sided fuselage of the earlier D.I to D.III designs. The new elliptical cross-section required an additional longeron on each side of the fuselage and the fin, rudder and tailplane initially remained unchanged from the D.III.

Compared to the D.III, the upper wing of the D.V was 121 mm (4.75 in) closer to the fuselage, while the lower wings attached to the fuselage without a fairing. The D.V wings were almost identical to those of the standard D.III, which had adopted a sesquiplane wing arrangement broadly similar to the French Nieuport 11. The only significant difference between wings of the D.III and D.V was a revised routing of the aileron cables that placed them entirely within the upper wing. Idflieg conducted structural tests on the fuselage but not the wings of the D.V.^[

Operators

German Empire

• Luftstreitkräfte
• Kaiserliche Marine

Poland

• Polish Air Force (postwar)

Ottoman Empire

• Ottoman Air Force

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