Dornier Do X
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The Dornier Do X was a German flying boat that was the largest, heaviest and most powerful aircraft in the world when it was produced. While popular with the public, a lack of commercial interest and a number of (non-fatal) accidents prevented more than three models from being built.
It was conceived by Dr. Claudius Dornier and took seven years to design and another two years to build. In the design process, a one-to-one wooden mock-up was built, a first in aviation history.
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[edit] Flight history
[edit] Initial flights
The Flugschiff (flying ship), as it was called, was launched for its first test flights on 12 July, 1929. It was financed by the German Transport Ministry and was manufactured in a specially designed plant at Altenrhein, on the Swiss portion of Lake Constance, in order to avoid the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade aircraft to be built in Germany after World War I.
On 21 October, the plane took flight carrying 169 people consisting of 150 passengers (mostly production workers and their families), 10 crew and 9 'stowaways', who had not received tickets for the already very popular plane. The flight easily broke the world record for the number of people aboard an airplane, not to be beaten for 15 years. Weighing 48 tons, the plane taxied for 50 seconds before slowly ascending to only 200 m (650 feet). As a result of the ship's sheer size, passengers were asked to crowd together on one side or the other to help the Do X make turns. It flew for 40 minutes at a maximum speed of 170 km/h (105 mph) and finally landed on Lake Constance.
[edit] World tour
The Do X took off from Friedrichshafen, Germany on 3 November 1930, commencing a transatlantic test flight. The route took the Do X to the Netherlands, England, France, Spain, and Portugal. The journey was interrupted at Lisbon on 29 November 1930, when a tarpaulin contacted a hot exhaust pipe and started a fire that consumed most of the portside wing.
After sitting in Lisbon harbor for six weeks while new parts were fabricated and the damage repaired, the flying boat continued (with several further mishaps and delays) along the Western African coast, across the Atlantic to South America (where the crew were greeted as heroes by the local German emigré communities).
Afterwards, the flight went north to the United States, finally reaching New York on 27 August 1931. Here the plane and crew spent the next nine months as the Do X's engines were overhauled, and thousands of sightseers made the trip to Glenn Curtiss Airport (now LaGuardia) to tour the leviathan of the air. The return trip began on 21 May 1932 from New York to Newfoundland, on to the Azores, and finally to Berlin on 24 May, where the Do X was met by a cheering crowd of 200,000.
[edit] Final fate
Germany's original Do X was turned over to Lufthansa, the national airline, after the financially strapped Dornier Company could no longer operate it. After a successful 1932 tour of German coastal cities, Lufthansa planned a Do X flight to Vienna, Budapest, and Istanbul for 1933. The voyage ended nine days out when the plane's tail section tore off during a botched, over-steep landing on a reservoir lake near the city of Passau. While the fiasco was successfully covered up and the plane repaired, it was soon after flown to Berlin in 1934, where it became the centerpiece of Germany's new aviation museum.
It remained on exhibit until being destroyed in a RAF air raid during World War II in late-November 1943. While never a commercial success, the Dornier Do X was the largest plane of its day, a pioneer in demonstrating the potential of international passenger air service and one of the most impressive aircraft of all time. A successor model, the Do-XX, was envisioned by Dornier but was never advanced beyond the design study stage.
[edit] Further models
Three Do Xs were constructed in total: the original operated by Dornier itself, and two others machines based on orders from Italy - the X2 (named Umberto Maddalena) and X3(named Alessandro Guidoni). The Italian variants were essentially identical to the original with the exception of the powerplant and engine mounts. Each craft was powered by Fiat A-22R (V-12 water-cooled) engines, with the six motor mounts being covered by a streamlined fairing.
Both plane orders originated with SANA, an Italian airline, but the aircraft were requisitioned and used by the Italian Air Force primarily for prestige flights and public spectacles. After plans for a first-class passenger service were deemed to be unfeasible, the X2 and X3 quietly vanished. No evidence exists of their fate, but presumably, they were quietly broken up for scrap, probably around 1935.
[edit] Hull, engines and interior
The flying boat had a wingspan of 48 m (157' 5"), a length of 41 m (134' 2") and a height of 10 m (33'). The plane had an all-duralumin hull with wings comprised of a steel-reinforced duralumin framework covered in heavy linen fabric, doped with aluminum paint.
Powered by twelve 525 horsepower Siemens Jupiter radial engines (6 tractor propellers and 6 pushers), mounted in six tower nacelles on the wing. The air-cooled Jupiter engines however were prone to overheating, and only able to lift the plane to an altitude of 425 m (1,400 feet), preventing it from making trans-Atlantic crossings. After completing 103 flights in 1930, the Do X was refitted with water-cooled Curtiss Conqueror 12-cylinder inline engines of 610 horsepower each. Only with the newly fitted with the Curtiss engines, now able to reach 500 m (1,650 feet) in a test flight, was it deemed suitable to cross the Atlantic.
The plane was designed to carry 66 passengers on long distances or 100 on short trips. The luxurious accommodations eventually provided on the Do X approached the standards of transatlantic liners. On the main deck were a smoking room with its own wet bar, a dining salon, and seating for the 66 passengers, whose seats could be converted to sleeping berths for anticipated night flights. Aft of the passenger spaces were an all-electric galley, lavatories, and cargo hold. The cockpit, navigational office, engine control and radio rooms could be found on the upper deck. The lower deck held fuel tanks and 9 watertight compartments, any 7 of which were needed to provide full flotation.
[edit] Operators
[edit] Specifications
- Engines: twelve x 525 hp (391 kW) each Siemens Jupiter or 610hp Curtiss Conqueror.
- Dimensions:
- wingspan 48.00 m
- length 40.10 m ;
- Weight: 56,000 kg (loaded)
- Maximum speed: 211 km/h (at 1000 m altitude) ;
- Passengers: 150
- First flight: July 12, 1929
[edit] See also
- Short Sarafand - largest biplane flying boat
[edit] Appearances in fiction
- Author Michael Moorcock featured the aircraft in his alternate universe fiction as a symbol of power and style emblematic of the lost era of the 1930's.
- The 1934 movie, The Perils of Pauline, features historic footage of the flight of the DO X.
- The 1985 Alphaville pop group music video "Jet Set" shows footage of the Dornier Do X.
- A Do X used as a mobile weapons lab appears in Albatross: Wings of Death, an episode of Lupin III. The plane depicted has a twin tail and only five engines.
