Dietrich-Gobiet DP.VII

DP.VII
Role Light sports aircraft
National origin Germany
Manufacturer Dietrich-Gobiet Flugzeugwerk
First flight Spring 1924




The Dietrich-Gobiet DP.VII was a simple, low power, German sports aircraft flown in early 1924.

Design and development

The low powered DP.VII was a simple, easily transportable, low wing monoplane intended to make sports aviation more widely accessible. It had a simple, thick section wing, essentially rectangular in plan apart from blunted, angled tips. This had two main wooden box spars and was braced to the upper fuselage on each side with an inverted V-form pair of struts from the upper fuselage longerons to the spars at about one third span. Unusually, the one piece wing structure passed through the deep fuselage above the lower longerons and could be extracted in a few minutes then transported away on a pair of trestles normally stowed inside the DP.VII. The aircraft had long span ailerons filling about two thirds of the wing.[1]

The simple, flat sided fuselage was a steel tube structure with four longerons, linked by welded struts, defining the shape. Internal piano wire bracing stiffened the fuselage which was fabric covered. The open cockpit was over the rear wing and was large enough for a passenger to sit behind the pilot, straddling a box seat. Though the power was low, the structure was light and the load/empty weight ratio (0.89) was noted as high. At the time, the installation of the 22 kW (30 hp) air-cooled Haacke HFM-2 engine was seen as particularly clean, with only the upper cylinders projecting out of the cowling.[1]

The DP.VII's mainwheels were mounted on a single axle, conventionally rubber sprung to a cross member attached to the lower fuselage longerons by a V-form pair of struts on each side. Less conventionally, the undercarriage structure was braced by another, transverse, V-strut from the cross piece centre to the longerons. There was a sprung tail skid at the rear.[1]

The exact date of the DP.VII's first flight is not certain but the prototype had been well tested by late May 1924 and there were plans to put it into quantity production.[1] At almost the same time Dietrich-Gobiet were developing the DP.VIIA which, despite the similar designation, was a larger span, parasol wing monoplane. It had a similar fuselage and empennage to the DP.VII but a much more powerful engine, a Siemens-Halske Sh 4 five cylinder radial producing about 41 kW (55 hp). This aircraft was on display at the The Third International Aero Show at Prague in early June 1924.[2] Few of either type seem to have been produced.[3]

Variants

DP.VII
Low wing monoplane, powered by a 22 kW (30 hp) Haacke HFM 2 flat twin engine.[1]
DP.VIIA
Parasol monoplane, powered by a 43 kW (58 hp) Siemens-Halske Sh 4 radial engine, with 20% greater span and 50% heavier loaded weight.[1][2] Based on the Stahlwerk Mark R.III.

Specifications (DP.VII)

Data from Flight, 22 May 1924 p.287.[1]

General characteristics

Performance

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 "The Dietrich-Gobiet Sport Monoplane". Flight XVI (21): p.286–7. 22 May 1924.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "The Aeroshow at Prague - Dietrich-Gobiet Flugzeugwerk, Cassel". Flight XVI (24): p.385. 12 June 1924.
  3. ↑ "Reconstructed 1919-1935 German Civil Register". Retrieved 6 September 2014.