 The bomber was reputedly the largest wooden aircraft to be produced in any quantity during World War I, with only the Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII prototype bomber of 1916–1919 being larger, with the Staaken R.VI's wingspan of nearly equaling that of the World War II Boeing B-29 Superfortress, although significantly less than the span of the Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII.In September 1914, at the start of World War I, Ferdinand von Zeppelin visualised the concept of a "Riesenflugzeug" (R) bomber, to be larger than the then-nascent Friedel-Ursinus twin-engined military aircraft.Using engineers from the Robert Bosch GmbH, he created the "Versuchsbau Gotha-Ost" (VGO) consortium in a rented hangar at the Gotha factory.