In the years that followed Germany’s crushing defeat in the First World War, German aviators took to flying gliders - a sport which led to rapid advances in the study of aerodynamics. Radical ideas for new aircraft flourished alongside more conventional designs and soon developed into a struggle between proponents of ‘tailless’ and ‘flying wing’ types and those who saw traditional layouts with tail fins and tail planes as the way forward. It was a research odyssey that would continue throughout the war and produce some of the most incredible, unusual and downright bizarre aircraft designs ever seen.