The inventor’s son

AGO began with a famous surname. Gustav Otto, son of Nicolaus Otto, the inventor of the four-stroke engine, was a pioneer aviator holding German pilot’s licence No. 34. In 1911 he and Dr Herbert Alberti founded Flugmaschinenwerke Gustav Otto in Munich, with a flying school attached, as was the custom. One of its later pupils was Ernst Udet. The company’s pusher observation biplanes, powered by Otto’s own engines, became standard kit for the Bavarian flying corps.

Pushers over the Western Front

A Berlin-Johannisthal branch, Ago Flugzeugwerke, followed in 1912. In the First World War it built reconnaissance machines, starting with August Haefeli’s pusher C.I. The best of them, the C.IV of 1916, had sharply tapered wings and a reputation for speed, but it was hard to build and pilots found it unstable; fewer than 100 were completed. Meanwhile Otto’s Munich works were reorganised in 1916 as Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, a business that would grow into BMW. After the war Otto tried cars, failed, sold Oschersleben in 1919 and withdrew to Lake Starnberg; he died in 1926.

Reborn to build other people’s fighters

The name refused to die. AGO’s assets were auctioned in 1930, but the new regime revived the Oschersleben plant in the mid-1930s as Apparatebau GmbH Oschersleben, a licence factory for Arado, Heinkel, Henschel and, from 1941, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Its own Ao 192 Kurier light twin reached only nine examples. At its peak AGO employed about 4,500 people, and from 1943 its key role in Fw 190 production made it a prime target for Allied bombers. In 1947 the Red Army blew up what remained of the factory.

מפעלים

• Munich works · Munich, Bavaria — Original Flugmaschinenwerke Gustav Otto, 1911
• Johannisthal division · Berlin-Johannisthal — Ago Flugzeugwerke from 1912
• Oschersleben works · Oschersleben — Opened 1916; revived in the 1930s; bombed from 1943

אֲנָשִׁים

• Gustav Otto · founder, aviator — Son of Nicolaus Otto; died 1926
• August Haefeli · designer — Designed the AGO C.I
• Gabriel Letsch · head designer — First successful Otto pusher biplane

שיאים וראשונות

• Gustav Otto held German pilot’s licence No. 34