Dewoitine D.338

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Dewoitine D.338 / D.342 / D.620
Dewoitine D.338 (1936)
Type: Airliner
Design country:

FranceFrance France

Manufacturer:

Dewoitine

First flight:

1936

Number of pieces:

33

The Dewoitine D.338 was a rated for 22 passengers dreimotoriges airliner of the French manufacturer Dewoitine from the 1930s. The D.342 and the D.620 were improved versions .

history

Pre-war period

The first flight of the prototype F-AOZA took place in the spring of 1936. For Air France , the aircraft became the main type that was used on all routes. The first aircraft was delivered on November 2, 1937. Until the war began, 29 aircraft were taken. The prototype and thirty series aircraft were built. The aircraft was equipped with 22 seats for European traffic. In traffic with South America it flew with 18 seats. The long-haul version, which linked France with Indochina , received six comfortable armchairs and six loungers. At the beginning of 1939 two D.338 were shipped to Buenos Aires to serve the traffic between Natal in Brazil and Santiago de Chile . Ten aircraft flew on all main routes in European traffic.

Second World War

On September 1, 1939, the Air France material was confiscated. Transport groups of three aircraft each were formed from the aircraft. During a transport mission, the F-ARTD was shot down by its own flak on June 20, 1940 , killing one crew member. At the end of September 1939, heavily restricted air traffic could be resumed. Air traffic had to be stopped on June 26, 1940. The Vichy government in the unoccupied part of France then allowed the resumption of traffic from August 10, 1940, but only in the unoccupied part and with and in Africa.

The D.338 flew the routes in Africa: Tunis - Casablanca , Marseille - Dakar and Marseille - Libreville ( Congo ). The routes to and in South America had to be set, so that the two D.338 remaining in Argentina were finally sold to the Argentine Air Force on September 30, 1942 . The route to Indochina has also been discontinued. Three D.338s remained in Vietnam and connected Hanoi with Saigon. On July 7, 1940, the F-AQBA was shot down by Japanese fighters over the Gulf of Tonkin , killing the three crew members and the three passengers on board.

During the Allied invasion of Syria in June / July 1941, all available long-haul Air France aircraft were used to fly reinforcements to Damascus . Four D.338 were lost due to the effects of the war. Two more were captured by advancing Free French troops and used for the Lignes Aériennes Militaires in the Middle East with their own permits (FL-AQB and FL-ARI) between Damascus and the Congo.

Use at Deutsche Lufthansa

During the German occupation of southern France in November 1942, there were only eight D.338 there. The rest flew in North Africa and so came into the grip of the Allies . Since the German Lufthansa suffered from a significant aircraft shortage after a large part of the fleet had to be given over to the Air Force at the beginning of the war , it was dependent on charter aircraft from other companies. In this case the Dewoitine 338 and the Bloch MB.220 were of interest to them . Accordingly, the eight D.338 available were chartered on February 1, 1943. The F-AQBM received the German D-AYWT transfer license and was flown to Berlin on April 16, 1943. Test flights were carried out with the new D-AUAN registration, but during which a certain instability of the aircraft was determined. It was therefore decided that the aircraft had to be modified before they could be used in air traffic. In October 1943 three more D.338s were transferred to Berlin to make these changes. This did not happen because the Lufthansa Ju 52 from the Luftwaffe series could be obtained. The four aircraft delivered were parked and later destroyed by war events. The other four chartered planes remained in Toulouse-Montaudron, two of which were destroyed in a bomb attack on May 2, 1944. The D.338 was only used once in the regular service of the DLH in the fourth quarter of 1943 with 524 kilometers of flight.

post war period

After the end of the war, the remaining ten aircraft were used in Air France's European traffic, but were gradually scrapped until 1949.

D.342 and D.620

In addition to the 30 D.338 delivered to Air France , there were two improved versions. The D.342 had space for 24 passengers and had three radial engines Gnôme-Rhône 14N with 682 kW each. The only completed aircraft was handed over to Air France in 1942. It was destroyed by a crash in Algiers on September 27, 1942, killing the four-man crew and 21 passengers. The D.620 for 30 passengers had three 656 kW Gnôme-Rhône 14K engines, but was no longer put into service.

Technical specifications

Three-sided view of the D.620
Parameter Dewoitine D.338 D.620 D.342
First flight August 9, 1935 October 22, 1936 November 23, 1938
built 31 1 1
crew 3 3 3
Passengers 12-22 30th 24
length 22.13 m 23.59 m 22.13 m
span 29.38 m 29.36 m 26.95 m
height 5.57 m 5.72 m 5.57 m
Wing area 99.0 m² 82 m²
Empty mass 7,905 kg 6,900 kg
Takeoff mass 11,150 kg 12,760 kg 15,500 kg
Cruising speed 260 km / h 300 km / h
Top speed 310 km / h 350 km / h 390 km / h
Service ceiling 4900 m 7700 m
Range 800 km (Europe)
1500 km (Africa)
2060 km (Far East)		 2100 km 1000 km
Engines 3 × Hispano-Suiza HS 9V-17 3 × Gnôme-Rhône 14Kdrs 3 × Gnôme-Rhône 14N
power 650 PS (478 kW) 740 hp (544 kW) 960 hp (706 kW)

See also

Web links

Commons : Dewoitine D.338  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Espérou, Robert: Les Dewoitine 338, in: Le Fana de l'Aviation No. 235, pp. 30-35
  2. ↑ Ferry, Vital: Bref Survol de la Vie d'Air France 1939-1948, in: Le Trait d'Union, No. 124, March 1989, pp. 21-30
  3. ↑ Shores, Christopher: Dust Clouds in the Middle East. The Air War for East Africa, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Madagascar, 1940-1942, London 1996, p. 230 f., P. 264 ff.
  4. ↑ Espérou, Robert: Les Dewoitine 338, in: Le Fana de l'Aviation No. 235, pp. 30-35
  5. ↑ Commission Consultative the Dommages et des Reparations: Ingérences Allemandes dans les Transports et Communications, monograph TC 8: Aéronautique Civile, Paris 1947, Annexe 1
  6. ↑ vielle, Bruno: Les Bloch 220 et Dewoitine 338 de la Deutsche Lufthansa, in: Le Trait d'Union, No. 209, May / June 2003, pp. 27-29
  7. ^ Federal Archives / Military Archives Freiburg, RL 2III, loss reports schools and others
  8. ↑ DLH supervisory board report for the fourth quarter of 1943, Lufthansa archive in Cologne
  9. ↑ Espérou, Robert: Les Dewoitine 338, in: Le Fana de l'Aviation No. 236, pp. 14-20
  10. ↑ Dewoitine D.338
  11. ↑ Dewoitine D.620
  12. ↑ Dewoitine D.342