Dornier Thursday 24
| Dornier Thursday 24 | |
|---|---|
 Dornier Do 24 V3 of the Dutch MLD |
|
| Type: | Flying boat as a sea scout |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: | |
| First flight: |
July 5, 1937 |
| Commissioning: |
1937 |
| Production time: |
1937 to May 1944 |
| Number of pieces: |
313 |
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The Dornier Do 24 was a three-engine, ocean-going long -range reconnaissance flying boat that flew for the first time in 1937. Originally built for the Netherlands, it was mainly used for sea rescue until the 1970s . A modernized Do 24 ATT still flies today .
The development and testing
Both the Do 24 and the Blohm & Voss BV 138 , which is competing for it, go back to the request of the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) for an ocean-going long-range reconnaissance flying boat from August 1934. It was not until 1936/37, however, that an initial assessment was possible on the basis of building descriptions and inspection of the finished dummies. For both designs, engines of the Jumo 205 type were prescribed, which had proven to be particularly economical in consumption in the South Atlantic service of Deutsche Lufthansa . Both companies received the order to build two prototypes each, of which the respective V1 should be ready to fly in July 1936 (Blohm & Voss BV 138, RLM designation: Ha 138) or in December 1937 (Do 24).
There were two reasons why the Dornier aircraft would be ready so much later. It was already evident at this time that the RLM and the test site on the Priwall in Travemünde tended more towards the Blohm & Voss design. At the same time, the Dutch Marine Luchtvaartdienst (MLD) - after a design competition between Dornier, Fokker and Sikorsky - showed great interest in the Do 24 design in order to upgrade its Dornier Do J ("whale") from the 1920s in East India with newer equipment replace. The RLM now agreed that Dornier would postpone work on aircraft V1 and V2 and give priority to the expected order of no less than 30 Do 24. However US were for these aircraft Curtiss-Wright - radial engines provided as they were used in other aircraft of the MLD. The structural changes in the space provided for the Dutch version, designated K-1 were carried out soon, so that the first Do 24 with captain Gundermann their V3 with the registration D-ADLP on July 5, 1937 first flight in Manzell perform could.
This was followed by a detailed test, which was initially ended with the routine test on September 3, 1937; the offshore testing in the North Sea took place from September 5th to 11th. Members of the MLD also took part there. Although the testing was successfully completed, there were still a few changes that made it necessary to continue the testing in Manzell. From October 13 to 15, the aircraft was officially accepted by the customer and ten days later flown by Gundermann to Hamburg for shipment to East India, where it was put into service as the X-1.
Since the Travemünde test center and then the RLM had already decided in favor of the BV 138 in September 1937, interest in the two Do 24 V1 and V2 flying boats was no longer great. So the V1 flew as D-AIBE, later TJ + HR, for the first time on January 10, 1938, the V2 with the master code DP + BH only at the beginning of April 1940. Both flying boats with crews from the E -stelle Travemünde became transport flights during the occupation of Norway deployed to Narvik . Later they were only used for experiments.
Manufacturing
The first 28 series-produced aircraft of the K-1 version with American Wright “Cyclone” GR-1820 -F52 engines (645 kW / 875 PS), which were partly in Altenrhein (Switzerland) and in Manzell near Friedrichshafen were built and flown in throughout Manzell, could now be delivered in quick succession. They got the license plates X-2 to X-29 and were all transferred with the transfer license plate D-AYWI, partly via Hamburg, but later directly to Dordrecht , where the licensing company Aviolanda was based. The last delivery took place on September 24, 1939, four weeks after the start of the Second World War .
However, one aircraft was not yet completed. It was the sample machine for the K-2 version, which was now equipped with 810 kW (1,100 hp) Wright "Cyclone" GR-1820-G105A. It was only able to take off on its maiden flight on November 22, 1939 and was delivered, again as D-AYWI, on December 21. Because Aviolanda's own license production of the Do-24K-1 flying boats had started, this last machine built on Lake Constance was given the designation X-37.
When the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands , seven licensed aircraft had already been shipped to East India; the eighth and other aircraft under construction fell into German hands. They were given RLM serial numbers starting with 001 and the designation Do 24N-1 as long as Wright “Cyclone” engines were still available for them. This affected 13 aircraft, of which the first was transferred to Travemünde on July 19 as D-AFBT (later D-AEAV). There it quickly became apparent how excellently the flying boat was suitable for use at sea and that it far surpassed the Heinkel He 59 in every respect. At the same time, the Blohm & Voss BV 138 with its hull walls that were steep on all sides had proven completely unsuitable for this purpose.
The Do 24 built after the Wright engines had been used up were then given German BMW Bramo 323 R 2 engines with 736 kW (1,000 hp) and the designations T-1 to T-3, which differed only in terms of equipment . The first T-1s were delivered in August 1941. At Weser-Flugzeugbau, the flying boats were initially given two large loading flaps on the left side of the fuselage and a Kärcher heater for the cargo hold for emergency use. The production was later increased to four, even six aircraft per month, with next to the shipyard De Schelde also Fokker was included. The Dutch production ended in September 1944.
Because of the increasing demand for Do 24, from July 1941 the French SNCAN in Sartrouville, north-west of Paris on the Seine, was also obliged to build six aircraft per month. Between October 1942 and May 1944 it delivered a total of 47 aircraft for the Luftwaffe. This company built another 40 Do 24 for the French Aéronavale after the liberation of France . A total of 313 Do 24 flying boats were manufactured by all companies involved.
Construction figures for the Do 24 1937 to 1947 :
| version | Dornier | Aviolanda | SNCAN | TOTAL | delivery |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prototypes | 3 | 3 | |||
| K-1 | 28 | 28 | January 1938 to September 1939 | ||
| K-2 | 1 | 7th | 8th | December 1939 to March 1940 | |
| N | 13 | 13 | July 1940 to 1941 | ||
| T-1 | 11 | 11 | August 1941 to October 1941 | ||
| T-2 | 38 | 38 | November 1941 to September 1942 | ||
| T-3 | 125 | 47 | 172 | October 1942 to September 1944 | |
| Thursday-24 | 40 | 40 | 1945 to 1947 | ||
| TOTAL | 32 | 194 | 87 | 313 |
Thu 24 abroad
Apart from the German Air Force, only Spain received twelve Do 24 in the late summer and autumn of 1944. They were no longer needed in the now heavily shrunk area of Europe that was still occupied by the Germans and could thus be sold to Spain. From Pollença on Mallorca , where they had been transferred from Germany, they flew reconnaissance and sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean and Atlantic until the 1970s. All aircraft of the type still in existence today come from this inventory.
After Sweden no airplane was delivered. Only a Do 24 of the distress group 81 , which had been flown to Sweden by an on-board mechanic and his girlfriend at the end of October 1944 from the Land- und Seefliegerhorst Nest in Pomerania , was bought by the Swedish government and used until 1951. A second Do 24, which had only landed in Sweden on May 9, 1945, coming from Windau , was handed over to the Soviet Union with the crew and many of the inmates from the Baltic States in August .
After the war, France also used the Do 24. Their tasks were mainly sea rescue and the location of sea mines . In 1953 the last machine was taken out of service.
At the beginning of March 1945, the Luftwaffe tried to get thousands of German children who had been evacuated to Treptow an der Rega in what is now Poland because of the bombing war to safety from the approaching Soviet troops. Dornier Do 24 was also used for this, which brought the children from the Kamp sea airfield to the west. On March 5, 1945, a Do 24 crashed into Lake Kamper shortly after taking off . The crew, the carers and over 70 children were killed. The wreck remains in the lake with the dead to this day. On the basis of an initiative by the Polish authorities and the Volksbund , the remains and possibly also the wreck are to be recovered.
Thu 24 ATT
In 1982 a Do 24 was converted into a Do 24 ATT ( A mphibischer T echnologie T räger). The conversion included new wings, Pratt & Whitney turboprop engines , a modified cockpit and a retractable land landing gear. On March 23, 1983, the Do 24TT (later ATT) was completed. The fuselage came from a machine built in 1944 that was in service in Spain until 1974. It later stood as an exhibit in the Dornier factory in Immenstaad . The wings were "wings of new technology", above which three Pratt & Whitney of Canada PT6A-45B turboprops with 1,125 hp each were accommodated in new nacelles, which drive Hartzell five-blade propellers. The fuselage also received a landing gear using the Do-31 main landing gear . The nose landing gear came in a slightly modified form from a Fokker-27 . The first flight of the D-CATD took place on April 15, 1983.
The wing of new technology is characterized by the bevel at the wing end, which prevents larger edge vortices, as well as by the manufacturing process of the wing upper and lower shell. The upper and lower shells including the stringers and ribs are milled from the solid as a flat, ribbed plate by NC milling machines. The curvature was carried out by a bending process using a precisely controlled shot peening process, which also compacted the surface and increased the fatigue strength of the material. Dornier first used this patented process in the Alpha Jet aircraft model .
The aim of this experimental program, funded by the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology , was to prove the seaworthiness of an amphibian with modern technology for sea rescue and surveillance. Dornier anticipated a demand for around 150 aircraft worldwide.
The Federal Aviation Authority had approved only a flying time of 150 hours of flight due to the age of the hull, so that Dornier aircraft had to lay up for it. As part of the takeover of the Dornier works by Daimler-Benz , the company's strategies changed and the program was discontinued.
After a time in the Deutsches Museum in Schleissheim , Iren Dornier , a grandson of Claude Dornier and son of Silvius Dornier , bought the aircraft in order to make it airworthy again in the Philippines. Iren Dornier uses it in world sightseeing flights to support UNICEF . Taking into account his more recent experience with the aircraft, Dornier launched a new project for a small amphibian, which under the name S-Ray 007 had its maiden flight on July 14, 2007 in Friedrichshafen. The Do 24ATT has been touring Europe since the beginning of 2006 and has been stationed at the former Dornier works airfield in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich during this time . In addition to various other events ( Wilhelmshaven “ Weekend on the Jade ”, Biscarrosse in France), air shows ( ILA , AirPower in Zeltweg, Hahnweide ) and filming (Peroni), the Do 24ATT was again in July 2009, as it was in the past three years the main attraction at the Scalaria Air Challenge at the Austrian Wolfgangsee .
After an extensive revision of the Do 24ATT, which lasted almost two years, a German provisional traffic license was granted by the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt in November 2011 . The D-CIDO label was already set. For mid-2012, we are aiming for approval in a restricted special class that will allow passengers to be taken along. In July 2013 Iren Dornier again took part in Scalaria with Do 24ATT. When she participated in the Scalaria again in July 2015, the Do 24ATT was damaged by driftwood when it splashed down in the water, but could be towed and moored. According to flight engineer Christian Doerk, the Thursday was about to be officially approved for traffic.
Technical specifications
| Dornier Do 24 T | |
|---|---|
| Parameter | Data |
| length | 21.95 m |
| height | 5.75 m |
| Wingspan | 27.27 m |
| Wing area | 108 m² |
| drive | three Bramo 323 R 2 star engines with 736 kW (1,000 PS) each |
| Top speed | 340 km / h at an altitude of 3,000 m |
| Service ceiling | 5,900 m |
| Range | 2,900 km |
| Empty mass | 9,200 kg |
| Takeoff mass | 18,400 kg |
| Armament | One 7.92 mm MG 15 each in the bow and stern, one 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon in the rear turret |
| Dornier Do 24 ATT | |
| Parameter | Data |
| length | 21.95 m |
| Height (on wheels) | 6.68 m |
| Wingspan | 30.00 m |
| Wing area | 100 m² |
| drive | three Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-45B turboprops with 869 kW (1,125 PS) each |
| Cruising speed | 343 km / h |
| Empty mass | 10,070 kg |
| Takeoff mass from land | 14,000 kg |
| Starting mass of water | 12,000 kg |
See also
Web links
- Official website of Dornier Do 24ATT including the latest crew blog with upcoming events, picture gallery, and much more.
- Dornier Do 24 & Do 24ATT, detailed data at Flugzeuginfo.net
- Comprehensive website on the technology and history of Do 24 (English)
- Thu 24 ATT in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 2006
- Private website with a report about the landing of the Do 24 ATT on the Rhine in Cologne on May 20, 2006
- Picture gallery for the landing of the Do 24 ATT on the Rhine in Cologne on May 20, 2006
- Report and video about the splashing of the Do 24 ATT on the Main in Frankfurt on October 19, 2006
swell
- ^ Jean-Pierre Dubois: French-Built Dornier Do-24s. In: Air Britain Digest. November-December 1988.
- ^ Federal Archives / Military Archives Freiburg, RL 3, production programs and takeovers by the Luftwaffe. Geldhof, N .: 70 Jaar Marineluchtvaartdienst, Leeuwarden 1987
- ↑ Picture gallery of the Volksbund
- ↑ The Lake of the Dead Children - The World
- ^ Project "Children of Kamp" ( Memento from November 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ FliegerRevue January 2012, p. 7, Dornier 24 ATT flies with German VVZ
- ↑ Thousands at seaplane show , ORF.at, July 14, 2013, last accessed on August 10, 2016. - Series of images
- ↑ suedkurier.de