Franz Schneider (engineer)

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Franz Schneider 1915

Franz Schneider (born September 27, 1871 in Konstanz , † May 24, 1941 in Tokyo ) was an aircraft pioneer and entrepreneur.

Life

Wilhelmine Schneider's son from Quinten trained as a precision mechanic and electrical engineer. From 1892 he worked as an electrical engineer for Stirnemann & Weissenbach ( Zurich ) and Siemens-Schuckert in Nuremberg. In July 1899 he married Luisa Speyer (1877 in Moyeuvre-Grande - 1944 in Nagasaki ), with whom he had two children.

Plant manager at Nieuport

In 1906 Schneider took over the technical management of the magneto ignition factory "Nieuport Duplex" in Suresnes near Paris at Édouard de Nieuport and his brother Charles . Inspired by the enthusiasm of the Nieuport brothers for aircraft construction, Schneider supported the two of them in 1909 with the design and construction of a monoplane. The aircraft "Nieuport N.1" was destroyed in a flood after a successful first flight in Issy-les-Moulineaux . In 1910 they built a closed monoplane, in the following year Schneider and the Nieuport brothers developed a monoplane that flew over 100 km / h for the Gordon Bennett race .

Chief designer of the Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft AG

After Nieuport's death in an accident in September 1911, Schneider began working as technical director at Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft AG in Johannisthal , where he designed three different monoplanes, the LVG B and LVG C biplanes , which were used in large numbers by the German air forces . In 1914, the LVG sold two of these aircraft to Japan, and Switzerland also ordered six aircraft for the military; however, the outbreak of war prevented extradition.

Drawing for patent

In 1913 Schneider had a firing device for firearms on aircraft patented by the German Imperial Patent Office (DRP No. 276390). This patent used a locking mechanism which, via a linkage coupled to the crankshaft of the engine, locks the trigger of the weapon when a propeller blade is in front of the muzzle.

Prototype of the LVG EI at the Johannisthal airfield

Schneider had this mechanism installed in the two-seater LVG EI monoplane in 1915 , and equipped its observer seat with a second, movable MG on a special rotating ring mount for which he also had a patent. The LVG EI was lost during transport to the front for practical tests. The engineer Heinrich Lübbe further developed the locking device for the Fokker Flugzeugwerke using further patents into a series-ready interrupter gear; the principle of Schneider's rotating ring mount was soon standard in German military aircraft of the First World War.

Entrepreneurial activity

Schneider had meanwhile become a German citizen, but retained his Swiss citizenship. At the end of 1916, Schneider left the LVG after financial and legal disputes. Franz Schneider acquired the facilities in Seegefeld from the liquidated Deutsche Eisenbahn-Speisewagen-Gesellschaft and founded his own company, Franz Schneider Flugmaschinenwerke, with around 125 employees on January 22, 1917 . Among the staff was the young Viktor Carganico , the construction supervision was led by Lieutenant Elchleb. Although Schneider designed a single-seater fighter in 1918, the factory mainly repaired front-end aircraft from Albatros, DFW and LVG. In 1919 Schneider moved with his family to Seegefeld.

After the end of the First World War, aircraft were only allowed to be built in Germany under severe restrictions, so the company tried to open up new business areas. Around 1920 Schneider therefore changed the company name to Franz Schneider Maschinenwerke and, in addition to building and selling flying machines, now also offered railroad cars and machines of all kinds.

In 1937 he went to Japan at the invitation of a Japanese general, and died five years later in Tokyo. Ing.Franz Schneider's urn is buried in the foreigners cemetery in Yokohama.

literature

  • Aéro-revue suisse ; Volume 16 (1941), page 7
  • Alfred Waldis : "The Inventor Franz Schneider" in Five Pioneers of Aircraft Construction ; Page 13 ff.
  • Manfred Schulz: Franz Schneider Flugmaschinenwerke mbH Seegefeld in: Heimatjahrbuch 2015 for Falkensee and the surrounding area , page 68 ff.

Web links

Commons : Franz Schneider (Ingenieur)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry Wydler: Franz Schneider (engineer). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ↑ Aviation , VI. Year, No. 20/1914, pp. 804ff
personal data
SURNAME Schneider, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aircraft pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Constancy
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1941
Place of death Tokyo