 R.VI serial number R.30/16 was the earliest known supercharged aircraft to fly, with a fifth engine - a Mercedes D.II - installed in the central fuselage, driving a Brown-Boveri four-stage supercharger at some 6,000 rpm.This enabled the R.30/16 to climb to an altitude of .The idea of supercharging an aircraft's propeller-driving piston engines with an extra powerplant used solely to power a supercharger was not attempted again by Germany until later in World War II, when both the Dornier Do 217P and Henschel Hs 130E experimental bomber designs each revived the idea as the "Höhen-Zentrale-Anlage" system.