Mannesmann Poll triplane

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The hull of the Mannesmann-Poll three-decker during transport from Hanau-Großauheim to Cologne-Westhoven at the Main water training area near Hanau, 1918
Wheel of the Mannesmann-Poll three-decker after its discovery, 1919

The Mannesmann Poll triplane (also Poll Giant triplane , Forssman Tri-Plane , giant of Poll , Brüning MOORISH giant aircraft or Brüning shear giant ) was an unfinished German large aircraft of the First World War . It was planned as a transocean plane.

discovery

According to the official reports, plans and aircraft parts were found on September 15, 1919 by a British delegation of the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission in a hangar of the Mannesmann-MULAG company in Cologne-Poll . Due to the gigantic dimensions for that time, the discovery caused a great sensation: The fuselage of the triplane had a length of 45.70 meters, the span of the wing was 50.30 meters. The propulsion was provided by ten engines , eight of which, in pairs in four housings with push and pull propellers , were located on the central wing. The housing with the fifth pair of motors was located centrally on the sub-wing, below the fuselage. The Mannesmann-Poll three-decker would have had an estimated speed of 130 km / h and the almost unthinkable range of 10,500 kilometers at the time. In more recent research it is doubted whether the site was actually Poll or not the neighboring town of Westhoven . While the large wheel was found in Poll according to commission reports, photos of unknown origin of wing and fuselage components show the Westhoven location. Villehad Forssman, head of aircraft construction at Mannesmann-MULAG, is also shown in these photos .

use

The background to the construction of this oversized aircraft is unclear. Possibly it was to be used as a strategic bomber , whereby it could have carried a very large bomb load at its time. Because of the long range, it has been speculated that the triplane was supposed to be used for a spectacular attack on the east coast of the United States . There is also the assumption that the United States should be shown the technological superiority of the German Reich by dropping leaflets about New York . Its use as a cargo aircraft was also suspected.

In the absence of documents, however, no reliable statement can be made about the actual purpose. For a long time it was also unknown who was responsible for the design and construction of the aircraft. The few records found by the Control Commission named a chief engineer named Forstman . Since nothing is known about an aircraft designer by that name, it was generally assumed that Villehad Forssman was actually meant. This assumption was supported by the finding that the unfinished aircraft had similar structural features and weaknesses as an unsuccessful four-engine large aircraft that Forssman had built for Siemens-Schuckert in 1914/15 . The latest research confirms Forssman as the actual designer of the giant cereal. It was initially built by the Brüning company in Hanau - Großauheim , and from 1917 at least partially by Mannesmann-MULAG in Westhoven. It is believed that Mannesmann-MULAG and Forssman came into contact with each other around 1917 through a development order from the Reichsmarinamt for a remote-controlled torpedo. Forssman moved to Cologne in 1917 and became head of aircraft construction in Westhoven the following year. However, it is not known whether, in addition to the air torpedoes, planes were actually completed in Westhoven.

Plants in Poll

There is no evidence of any facilities owned by Mannesmann-MULAG in Poll. There is a speculative reference to makeshift buildings by the Rheinwerk company , whose factories, however, according to the literature, were not built until 1919. In Poll, this plant was located directly on a newly built parking and marshalling yard for the Cologne port railway and thus had a freight transport connection to the Mannesmann-MULAG plant in Westhoven, 3 km away, to the Deutz port and the general rail network. The photographs of the wing and fuselage components show that large aircraft parts were transported by rail for at least the last few kilometers. According to new research, the parts are said to have been transported by ship across the Main and Rhine.

Whereabouts

Part of the fuselage and one of the 2.20 m high wheels of the landing gear were shipped to Great Britain after being found. This wheel, restored in 1994, is the only remnant of the Mannesmann-Poll three-decker and is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum Duxford . The remaining parts are said to have been scrapped under Allied supervision in 1919.

literature

  • George William Haddow, Peter Michael Grosz: The German giants: the story of the R-planes, 1914-1919 . Putnam, 1962.
  • James Gilbert: Mostly they did . Swiss publishing house, Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-7263-6223-1 .
  • Dale M. Titler: Wings of Mystery: True Stories of Aviation History . Tower Publications, Inc., 1966.
  • Günther Sollinger: Villehad Forssman: Constructing German Bombers 1914–1918 . Rusavia Publishing House, 2009, ISBN 978-5-900078-62-5 .
  • Günther Sollinger: The Forssman Tri-Plane, the Largest Airplane of World War I. In: Humanitārās un sociālās zinātnes (=  Scientific Journal of RTU, the humanities and social sciences ). Volume 15, June 2009, ISSN  1407-9291 ( ortus.rtu.lv [PDF; 796 kB ]).
  • Gebhard Aders : The Giant von Poll - The construction history of the unfinished first German transocean aircraft. In: Geschichts- und Heimatverein Rechtsrheinisches Köln (Hrsg.): Rechtsrheinisches Köln - Yearbook for History and Regional Studies , Volume 5. Self-published, Cologne 1979.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gebhard Aders: The giant of Poll. P. 179.
  2. ^ A b c Günther Sollinger: The Forssman Tri-Plane. (pdf, 796 kB) June 8, 2009, accessed on September 15, 2019 (English).
  3. ↑ Gebhard Aders: The giant of Poll. P. 185.
  4. ↑ Martin Schiffmannam: ..von European Railways - On the history of the Talbot wagon factory in Aachen. In: Werkbahnforum, Europe's railways. August 22, 2009, archived from the original on September 9, 2013 ; accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  5. ↑ O. Hain, R. Engels: Operating facilities of the HGK. (pdf, 370 kB) June 13, 2016, archived from the original on March 1, 2017 ; accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Jens Arndt: Lecture on aviation sensation: aircraft construction in Hanau! In: hanauonline.de. Hanauer Geschichtsverein 1844, February 11, 2011, accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Gebhard Aders: The giant of Poll. P. 180.

Coordinates: 50 ° 53 ′ 55 ″  N , 7 ° 1 ′ 1 ″  E