Gustav Otto

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Born January 12, 1883 in Cologne; Died February 28, 1926 in Munich, Gustav Otto was a German Aircraft and aircraft-engine designer and manufacturer.

The [second?] son of Nikolaus August Otto (founder of N. A. Otto & Cie.), the first manufacturer of internal combustion engines and co-inventor, with friends Daimler and Maybach of the Otto cycle, the four-stroke engine cycle that most modern internal combustion engines use) Gustav's interest in engines and the manufacture thereof was something he inheritted very naturally from his father.

In 1909 (?) he expanded his interest to not just powering aeroplanes, but manufacturing them as well, and founded the Gustav Otto Flugmaschinenfabrik (aircraft factory) in Munich.

Image:A 1913 Otto B-type.jpg Shortly thereafter, he also established a company named AGO at Berlin's Johanisthall airfield to be closer to the German government's procurement process. The initials AGO stood for either Actien-Gesellschaft Otto or Aerowerke Gustav Otto--there seems to be some ambiguity--but the company mostly license-built Otto Flugmaschinenfabrik designs, as did Pfalz during the early years of World War I.

In 1916 he acquired Rapp Motorenwerke AG from Karl Rapp and renamed the two merged companies Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG (BFW). From this entity eventually emerged Bayerische Motorenwerke GmbH, the modern car and motorcycle manufacturer better known today as BMW. The circular blue-and-white BMW logo, a stylized spinning aircraft propeller, is a modern reminder of this heritage.