In 1925 the Turkish Air Force decided to replace its obsolete SPAD S.XIII biplane fighters and announced a competition for modern aircraft.

It received eight submissions from French and German companies and decided to order two prototypes each of the Dewoitine D.21, Nieuport-Delage NiD 42, Blériot-SPAD S.51, and the Rohrbach Ro IX Rofix for evaluation.

[1][2] The Rofix had an oval-profile monocoque fuselage with the single-seat cockpit positioned unusually far aft behind the trailing edge of the wing which had a cutout to improve the pilot's visibility.

[4] Despite these positive reports flight testing revealed problems with the aircraft's spinning characteristics and the wing's dihedral had to be altered several times to correct the issues.

Another notable fighter ace, Paul Bäumer, was hired by Rohrbach to demonstrate the Rofix in Turkey and began to familiarise himself with the aircraft on 13 July in preparation for the acceptance trials.