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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 1027.PDF
FLIGHT. a APRIL 14, 1938. " Flight " Visits the German Dornier Works to Inspect the Slim Do. 17 and Some Outstanding Flying Boats : Production Methods FLYING PENCIL By a. F. KING LOVELIEST and most romantic of cradles of flyingis Germany's Bodensee, known to the rest ofthe world as the Lake of Constance. Its beauty lies not only in its vistas of water and distant mountains, but in tne quaintness of its lakeside towns, like Meersburg, where Germany's oldest schloss dominates the hillside vineyards and streets of fantas- tically coloured houses. The charm of its associations has not been marred by the coming of the airship and aeroplane. Friedrichshafen has seen the founding and development of the monumental Zeppelin and Dornier interests. By the courtesy of the German Air Ministry and of Dornier Metallbauten G.m.b.H., it was my privilege to visit the three modern plants—Manzell, Allmansweiller and Lowental—on the outskirts of Friedrichshafen, and there to see the construction of such outstanding aircraft as the Dornier Do. 17 high-speed bomber-fighter (the "Flying Pencil ") and the Do. 18 and 24 flying boats. Our hosts likewise extended privileges to my companion, Max Millar, whose sectioned drawings of aircraft are well known to readers of Flight. Our guide and counsellor was Herr Diemer, one-time Dornier test pilot, and now the best-informed and most entertaining purveyor of aeronautical propaganda one can ever hope to meet. Incidentally, he is the incarnation, in appearance and by nature, of Sherlock Holmes. It is a sore trial restraining one's pen from flying off into accounts of Herr Diemer's early exploits—bombing raids in bizarre Friedrichshafen Giants (joint products of Zeppelin and Dornier) and a successful assault on the world's altitude record at the end of the war, when he climbed to over 30,000ft. with an unsupercharged engine ; or recounting tales woven round objects in the Dornier exhibition (popularly, but somewhat erroneously, termed museum), wherein one may trace the development of Dor- nier metal construction since the early war days. But space demands adherence to things of the present. At the Manzell works we were greeted by a gentleman with a Leica, who recorded our facial characteristics from front and side. His studies subsequently adorned our passes, which were demanded on every visit to any of the three works. The Manzell plant is devoted to the reception, inspec- tion, testing and storage of materials and detail parts; to the manufacture of major components; and to the final erection and testing of marine aircraft. Even rubber, oil and petrol are tested on reception before being passed to the central stores for distribution. I was particularly in- terested in the Zeiss-equipped section, where photomicro- graphs of the structure of metals are obtained, and by the sea-water corrosion tank. In this tank a sort of water wheel, each blade or paddle of which carries a sheet of metal, makes one revolution every two hours, the results of repeated immersion being studied first-hand. Apart from the usual mechanical testing machines, I was shown a modern X-ray apparatus for the detection of flaws in metals. There is a special department for testing proprietary articles and small assemblies from sub- contractors. In the central stores (wherein—as, indeed, throughout the whole Dornier organisation—extensive i:se is made of colours to differentiate between various materials) the company sometimes holds a greater stock of a certain product than its manufacturers themselves. In the shops I was immediately im- pressed by the completeness of the jigging. It was possible to detect portions of the Do. 18 flying boat by the green markings, the Do. 17 bomber landplane being allotted blue as its works colour. Such items as nacelles are built up on wooden jigs; the dexterity of operators on the wheeling machines, whereon fairing panels are formed, was well worth watching. Cer- tain of the larger items are formed hydrau- lically. A wind tunnel (115 m.p.h.) is main- A Do. 17 for Yugoslavia with GnomeRhone 14N0. engines. The cowlings are noteworthy.
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