DFS crane

DFS crane
Type:	Glider
Design country:	German Empire
Manufacturer:	Karl Schweyer AG

The DFS Kranich is a glider . It was developed by Hans Jacobs at the German Research Institute for Gliding (DFS) .

history

Series production of the crane took place in the aircraft construction department of Karl Schweyer AG in Mannheim. The two-seater version 2 was the most built glider in Germany between 1935 and 1939 . Several hundred copies were made, but the exact numbers are not known.

A crane of the Swedish Air Force

Erich Klöckner reached the stratosphere with a crane, which was towed and uncoupled from a Heinkel He 46 at an altitude of 5,700 meters, as the first person with a glider on October 11, 1940 at 11,460 m altitude . After the height record was not accepted by the Allied occupying powers due to the war, Klöckner received official recognition by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) at the end of the 1990s . It was not until ten years after Klöckner's record flight that this height was exceeded by the American Bill Ivans during a similar scientific program in the Sierra Nevada .

In 1942, the Swedish manufacturer AB Flygplan in Norrköping delivered 30 cranes to the Swedish Air Force for training purposes. These machines were given the military designation Se 103. DFS cranes were also manufactured at Beneš-Mráz in Chotzen in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia during the occupation.

Between 1950 and 1952, SZD produced 50 copies of a slightly modified version of the Kranich II as the IS-C Żuraw II in Poland .

The Focke-Wulf-Flugzeugwerke in Bremen developed and manufactured the Kranich III , which was a completely new development by Focke-Wulf and showed no similarities with its predecessors. The first flight took place on May 1, 1952. The pilot was Hanna Reitsch . 37 copies of this machine were made. The gliding index is 80. The crane III of the production school JuBi-Ratzeburg (D-2011) was recognized on November 3, 2016 as a technical movable monument.

Received aircraft

Crane owned by the Hahnweide Flying Museum

• DFS Kranich II in the Schleissheim airfield , 1942
• DFS Kranich II, D-8-11 / D-6260 in the German Gliding Museum , built on April 13, 1943, construction number 1135
• AISA Kranich II D-4819 in Paderborn
• DFS Kranich II in DaSK - Dansk Svæveflyvehistorisk Klub, built in 1943, construction number 1000, registration number D-0031 has been flying again since 2012
• DFS Kranich II owner association Flying Museum Hahnweide, built in 1942, construction number 748, approval number D-11-3223
• DFS Kranich II in the Osnabrück Association for Aviation eV, total restoration, year of construction November 12, 2000, registration number D-6048
• DFS Kranich II in the Association for the Promotion of Historic Glider Flight, built in 1948, approval number D-8504
• DFS Kranich II owner Neelco Osinga, Holland, built in 1948, approval number PH-103
• DFS Kranich II Flying Museum Hahnweide, Kirchheim / Teck, built in 1938, approval number D-4788 ex HB-475

Technical data crane II

Parameter	Data
overall length	7.7 m
span	18 m
Max. Takeoff mass	465 kg
Top speed	175 km / h
Glide ratio	23 at 70 km / h
Slightest sinking	0.7 m / s at 60 km / h

See also

• Focke-Wulf crane III
• List of aircraft types

literature

• Horst Lommel: From height reconnaissance to space glider 1935-1945, DFS secret projects , Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-613-02072-6
• Aerokurier magazine 1/1999: Erich Klöckner's foray into the tropopause , Motor Presse 1999
• Georg Brütting; The most famous gliders , Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-613-02999-6
• Horst Lommel: Aviation History magazine No. 4: Der Flieger Erich - an obituary for Erich Klöckner , Lautec Software and Medien GmbH, Siegen 2004
• Peter F. Selinger: Glider stories: the gliders and gliders of the German Glider Museum with model flight on the Wasserkuppe . Stiftung Deutsches Segelflugmuseum Wasserkuppe with model flight, Gersfeld / Rhön 2004, ISBN 3-00-011649-4 .

Web links

Commons : DFS Kranich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Virtual Aviation Museum : Technical data, accessed on March 2, 2009
• German Glider Museum : 1935–1950, accessed on March 2, 2009
• JuBi Ratzeburg
• Federal Committee on Culture in the DAeC with a list of listed aircraft

Individual evidence

1. ↑ aerokurier magazine 1/1999: Erich Klöckner's foray into tropopause, Motor Presse 1999
2. ↑ Lars Reinhold: Crane III is a movable monument. In: Flight Revue. Motor Presse Stuttgart GmbH & Co. KG, November 5, 2016, accessed on November 9, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Flugwerft Schleißheim : Kranich II, accessed on March 2, 2009
4. ↑ German Glider Museum ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : DFS "Kranich II", accessed on March 2, 2009 
5. ↑  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )
6. ^ History of the crane 2B-1 D-4788 ex HB-475 (built in 1938). Flying Museum Hahnweide eV (FMH), accessed on May 7, 2017 .