Dietrich-Gobiet aircraft construction
The Dietrich-Gobiet Flugzeugbau AG was a manufacturer of training and sport aircraft in the 1920s .
history
The Richard Dietrich Flugzeugbau GmbH was established in 1922 by Richard Dietrich in Mannheim founded. In the first time, mainly decommissioned war planes, such as. B. the Fokker D.VII , converted for civil use or on the basis of which a new aircraft of the type DP I Sperber developed and built. In order to circumvent the Allied building ban, this was equipped with a passenger seat. The development of the DP II Bussard , which was even more similar to the Fokker and was offered from the beginning of 1923, showed deficiencies in strength and flight performance and was quickly replaced by the DP IIa .
The DP IIa was already predominantly produced in Kassel , as Dietrich feared after the French occupied the Ruhr area that Mannheim could also be occupied. This also resulted in a merger with the Belgian electrotechnical works "Gobiet". Its owner, Anatole Gobiet , brought his engine factories in Kassel and Rotenburg an der Fulda into the new company Dietrich-Gobiet Flugzeugbau AG (DGF), whereby the planes were now being manufactured in the Kassel factory. Kassel-Waldau airfield served as the factory airfield . Due to the high demand, the workforce temporarily increased to up to 200 employees. In mid-1924, 20 DP IIa were delivered in three months. Before the Udet Flamingo was introduced , the DP IIa Bussard was the most successful sport aircraft in Germany in 1924/25. Dietrich liked to refer to himself as the chief developer , but the head of the design office was initially the Baltic German Erich von Knüpfer, who was replaced in 1925 by his compatriot Paul John Hall . Kurt Katzenstein (as a works pilot) and 1924 Antonius Raab (as authorized signatory and shareholder), who were both well-known aerobatic pilots and later co-founders of Raab-Katzenstein-Flugzeugwerke GmbH , also joined the company in Kassel . Raab won the international aerobatic competition in Prague in 1924 with the DP IIa and the one in Munich in 1925, while Katzenstein also took second place in the latter with a DP IIa.
Also known was the DP VII, a small monoplane with a 30 to 35 hp engine, which was to be produced cheaply in large numbers as the FORD der Lüfte . After a total of five crashes of DP VIIa and DP IIa in 1925, in which pilots Walter Karius and Edi Petersen, among others, perished, the company's reputation was shaken. After differences of opinion with Gobiet, after which Raab, Katzenstein, Hall and the operations manager Erich Gammelin also left the company to found their own company, Dietrich continued to run the factory on his own from 1925, but was unable to avert bankruptcy in 1926. In his memoirs, Antonius Raab writes that Dietrich “discovered his sympathies for the Nazi party” in 1925 and tried to boot out the not “purely Aryan” Katzenstein and Gobiet, who had brought him money and fame. Before the final liquidation, the plant was relocated for a short time in 1927 as Dietrich Flugzeugwerke AG to Teltow near Berlin to the facilities of the former aircraft company Nordflug, but liquidated shortly afterwards due to a lack of orders.
Constructions
- Dietrich DP I Sparrowhawk
- two-seat sports biplane with N-handle, one-piece upper wing and tubular steel hull, converted Fokker D.VII with 51 kW Gnôme - rotary engine , first flight May 5, 1922
- Dietrich DP II Buzzard
- Sports aircraft as a cantilever biplane (without handles) with a five-cylinder Siemens Sh 4 engine with 45 kW output
- Dietrich DP IIa
- Similar to DP II, but with N-shafts and seven-cylinder radial engine Sh 5 from Siemens and 62 kW output, most built (around 60 pieces) Dietrich aircraft, price 16,500 Reichsmarks
- Dietrich DP III
- Small airliner, abandoned in the construction stage
- Dietrich DP IV
- Draft / project
- Dietrich DP V
- Draft / project
- Dietrich DP VI
- Low - wing sport aircraft , a prototype in 1924 with a Haacke three-cylinder radial engine and 37 kW output
- Dietrich DP VII
- Targeted low-wing aircraft, 1924, with Haacke two-cylinder boxer engine and 25 kW output
- Dietrich DP VIIa
- Stripped, semi - cantilever high - decker in composite construction based on the Mark R III steelworks (50 of which have already been sold) with a five-cylinder Siemens Sh 4 radial engine with 45 kW, only six built. License acquired in 1924.
- Dietrich DP IX
- Sports two-seater based on the DP VIIa with a stronger wing clad with plywood, nine pieces built
- Dietrich DP XI
- Sports double-decker based on the DP IIa from 1925 with a seven-cylinder Sh 11 radial engine with 71 kW output and V-struts between the wings (individual pattern), the aircraft was recreated by Raab and Katzenstein in 1926 as RaKa KL.I , which led to legal disputes led with Dietrich.
- Dietrich DS I
- School double-decker with different engines, improved "Bussard", 18 pieces built
literature
- Bruno Lange: Type manual of German aviation technology . Bernard & Graefe Verlag 1986, ISBN 3-7637-5284-6 .
- Richard Dietrich: In flight for over half a century , Gütersloh 1942.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Newspaper report FLIGHT May 22, 1924
- ^ Antonius Raab: Raab flies , Hamburg 1984, p. 67
- ↑ FliegerRevue August 2009, pp. 58–61, Dierich relies on the tried and tested