All-metal aircraft
An all-metal aircraft is an aircraft whose structure is made of metal and whose fuselage and wings are planked with metal.
The outer skin of the aircraft absorbs forces and transmits them so that an all-metal aircraft only needs a light load-bearing structure. As a result of this so-called half - shell construction , all-metal airplanes have a lower weight than airplanes in wood or composite construction despite the use of relatively heavy materials .
This construction was first used by Hugo Junkers with the Junkers J 1 , which took off on December 12, 1915 with Friedrich von Mallinckrodt on its maiden flight. Junkers still used steel as the outer skin of the J 1 and J 2 , but for weight reasons switched to paneling with light metals such as duralumin for subsequent models such as the J 7 , which subsequently became the norm in metal aircraft construction. Junkers built several all-metal aircraft during the First World War , including the first series-built all-metal aircraft J 4 ( IdFlieg specification "JI"); However, the breakthrough came in 1919 with the J 13 , the first all-metal aircraft used in civil aviation, which was used throughout the world and of which 320 had been built by 1932.
literature
- Hans von Lüneberg: history of aviation: history, aircraft . Reinhard Welz Vermittler Verlag eK, 2003, ISBN 978-3-937081-62-5 . P. 103ff
- Manfred Knauer: One Hundred Years of Aluminum Industry in Germany (1886–1986): The History of a Dynamic Industry , Walter de Gruyter, 2014. ISBN 978-3-11-035138-5 . P. 113