Taube Monoplane -- August 6, 2014

From the beginning of World War One, both sides used airplanes for artillery spotting and other forms of observation.  The Central Powers, Germany and Austria, often used a type of monoplane known as the Taube (Dove), which had been designed by an Austro-Hungarian, Igo Etrich.  It was produced by many manufacturers, most famously Rumpler Flugzeugwerke in Germiany. 

The slow and difficult to maneuver Taubes were quickly made obsolete by more advanced airplanes.

From "What Every One Should Know About the Aeroplane," by Montague Palmer.  Saint Nicholas Magazine, July, 1915.

The German monoplanes, however, are distinctive, as they are generally of the Taube type, which, with its backward sweeping planes and its long triangular tail, bears a striking resemblance to the dove, or pigeon, although it was originally patterned after the gliding seed-leaf of the Zanonia palm.  Even the Taube is being largely superseded by newer designs approaching more nearly the common monoplane type.