Henrich Focke

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Henrich Focke (right) with Hitler (left)
Focke rays

Henrich Focke (born October 8, 1890 in Bremen ; † February 25, 1979 there ) was a German aircraft designer and helicopter pioneer. In 1924 he founded Focke-Wulf-Flugzeugbau AG in Bremen and in 1937 the company Focke, Achgelis and Co. GmbH in Hoykenkamp (Ganderkesee).

Life

Origin and years of youth

Henrich Focke is the son of the Senate Syndicate Johann Focke (1848–1922) and his wife Louise b. Stamer. His father is the founder of the Focke Museum in Bremen. His performance in mathematics was initially moderate , both in elementary school and in humanistic grammar school :

“I'm not a mathematician by nature; It was only when I was at the Technical University that I recognized that having reliable and broad mathematical knowledge, especially in the field of higher mathematics, was absolutely necessary. There I had to acquire it with all my energy. "

- Henrich Focke

Henrich's character was characterized into old age by a restless thirst for research and a fascination with the technical feasibility of aviation. In 1908 he began to study mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Hanover , which he was only able to complete with a diploma in 1920 due to the war. From 1908 to 1921 he built several aircraft with Georg Wulf and others.

In 1914 he registered as a war volunteer, but was initially not drafted because of a heart disease. It was not until the fall of 1914 that he was obliged to serve in the 75th Infantry Regiment. In the spring of 1915 he was transferred to the air force with the support of a friend.

Engineering activity until the end of 1945

Gyroplane C.19 of 1932, under license from Cierva at Focke-Wulf rebuilt.

Together with Georg Wulf and Werner Naumann , he founded the Bremer Flugzeugwerke in 1924, which was converted into a public limited company as Focke-Wulf AG in the same year . By 1933, 29 different types of aircraft had been built, of which around 140 were built. Among them was the A 19 Ente (also called "Focke-Ente"), a duck plane that went back to a patent from 1908 and in which his brother Wilhelm Focke was also involved. His partner Georg Wulf had a fatal accident in 1927 with one of the two copies built. The duck shape had occupied all three for a long time because of the stall safety.

After the merger of Focke-Wulf with Albatros Flugzeugwerke (1931), Henrich Focke began to work in the field of rotary wing aircraft . Initially, he gained experience in the operation and construction of Cierva gyroscopes C.19 and C.30 , for which the company had acquired licenses . A gyroplane , similar to a fixed wing aircraft, must first gain speed in order to generate lift . However, the gyroplane system, in which the rotor is set in motion by the airstream through autorotation , did not convince him.

In 1931 the Senate of Bremen appointed Henrich Focke professor. In the following years he held lectures at the technical college in Bremen. In 1933, Focke left the management of the Focke-Wulf AG, which he founded, due to external pressure, but was allowed to pursue the construction of rotary wing aircraft. As a result, the first really powerful helicopter , the Fw 61, took off in Bremen on June 26, 1936 . In contrast to the gyroplane, this aircraft could take off and land vertically. However, the management of Focke-Wulf AG did not see the development possibilities of the concept and caused such difficulties for its advocate that he finally withdrew from the company entirely. Instead, Focke founded the Focke-Achgelis company in Hoykenkamp (Ganderkesee) in 1937 together with the aerobatic world champion Gerd Achgelis . Even before the war began, work was being done there on the development and construction of the Fa 223 Drache cargo helicopter , of which a civilian version called Fa 266 was also planned. In 1944 the company was finally merged with Weser-Flugzeugbau GmbH.

After 1945

After the Second World War, Focke was conscripted as a prisoner of war in France from 1945 to 1948. He was a consulting engineer at the state-owned SNCASE in Paris for the replica of the Fa 223 , which ran under the name SE 3000 . At the same time he built the single-rotor SE 3101 , the forerunner of the Alouette .

Focke's house based on the "Messerschmitt method"

Focke set up an engineering office in Bremen around 1948. Since the Allies did not allow aircraft to be built in Germany, he transferred his experience from aircraft construction to ships, boats and structures. In 1949 Focke built his house in Horn-Lehe as the first prefabricated house based on Willy Messerschmitt's construction . From 1948 to 1958 he worked as a technical consultant in helicopter construction for the British Ministry of Aviation , in 1950 he was a designer at the Northwest German Vehicle Works (NWF) in Wilhelmshaven. In 1951 in Amsterdam he developed the Convertiplan , a four-rotor high-flyer. From 1952 to 1956 he was involved in the development and construction of the two-seater light helicopter Beija-Flôr (in German Kolibri ) in Brazil. This activity ultimately led to the founding of what is now the fourth largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, the Brazilian Embraer . In 1956 he returned to Bremen from Brazil.

In 1957 Henrich Focke received a patent for the Focke Rochen , a ring-shaped flying wing with a central rotor, the development of which had already started in 1944. At Borgward Automobilwerke in Bremen, the development of another helicopter, called Kolibri , followed, whereby Focke was able to draw on the experience gained in Brazil. The first flight took place in 1958. Because of the bankruptcy of the Borgward company in 1961, development had to be stopped.

Focke in retirement age

Around 1960 the now seventy-year-old Focke built a wind tunnel with his own resources in a backyard shed in Bremen's city center in order to use it to improve the flight characteristics of helicopters. Here he also researched other problems of aerodynamics, including the flow phenomena that occur during slow flight and the wake propulsion . The Focke wind tunnel was only rediscovered in 1997 and is now the centerpiece of a small museum.

Until 1965 Focke worked as a consulting engineer at the United Flight Technical Works (VFW) in Bremen and at the German Aerospace Center . He died on February 25, 1979 in Bremen, highly honored and awarded many prizes. His grave is in the Riensberg cemetery .

Honors

Incomplete list

literature

  • Harald Focke: Borgwards helicopter - Kolibri, the car of the skies. Carl B. - Car history (s), Volume 4. Verlag Peter Kurz, Bremen 2014, ISBN 978-3-927485-84-6 .
  • Henrich Focke: My path in life . German Society for Aviation and Raumfahrt, Cologne 1977 ( Deutsche Luft- und Raumfahrt . Communication 77, 01, ISSN  0070-4253 ), (Extended reprint: Kurz-Schönholz and Ziesemer, Bremen 1996, ISBN 3-931148-91-2 )
  • Henrich Focke: How the seagull flies . In: Miracle of the seagull flight . H. Bechhold, Frankfurt a. M. 1937, p. 68-93 .
  • Michael Koppel: Horn-Lehe-Lexikon. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8378-1029-5 .

TV documentary

Web links

Commons : Henrich Focke  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Focke: My way of life. 1996, pp. 6/10
  2. ↑ Focke: My way of life. 1996, p. 11.
  3. ↑ Focke My Life Path 1996
  4. ↑ Focke: My way of life. 1996, p. 18f.
  5. ↑ Information from the Federal President's Office
  6. ^ The Focke Brothers ( Memento from June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Focke, Henrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aircraft and helicopter designer
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1979
Place of death Bremen