Rohrbach Ro II

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Rohrbach Ro II
Rohrbach Ro II or Ro III with auxiliary sails
Rohrbach Ro II or Ro III with auxiliary sails
Type: ocean-going flying boat
Design country:

German EmpireGerman Empire German Empire

Manufacturer:

Rohrbach Metal Aeroplan A / S, Copenhagen

First flight:

November 11, 1923

Number of pieces:

1 or 2

The Rohrbach Ro II was a seaworthy flying boat made by the German manufacturer Rohrbach Metallflugzeugbau in the 1920s, which was originally intended to be used as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft and bomber. However, only one or two copies were made. The design as a cantilever monoplane was just as unusual at the time of publication as the consistent all-metal construction , which also included the planking of the rudders.

history

Even with the Ro I, which was only realized in model form, Rohrbach pursued the design goal of building large monoplane aircraft in all-metal. He designed the Ro II in 1923 at his Rohrbach Metal Aeroplan A / S branch in Copenhagen, where his designs were built until 1926 due to the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty for large aircraft.

The first flight took place on November 11, 1923 with Werner Landmann at the wheel. The subsequent test flights produced satisfactory results. On October 24, 1924, Karl Lesch set several FAI recognized payload and speed records over the Öresund near Copenhagen, which were also the first internationally recognized records for a German aircraft after the First World War. 1102 kilometers were covered in 7 hours 16 minutes, and a payload of 250 kg was transported over 500 km at a speed of 156.8 km / h and over 1000 km at 152.2 km / h.

Rohrbach's cooperation with Japanese experts who were in Berlin to get to know metal aircraft construction led to the founding of Mitsubishi-Rohrbach GmbH in 1925 and the sale of the Ro II to Japan. The Yokosuka Marine Arsenal assembled the machine, which was being transported by sea, under the guidance of a Rohrbach employee. This then served as a test flying boat in Japan. The good performance of the Ro II, which was referred to as R-1 (R = Rohrbach) in Japan, led to a Japanese follow-up order for the improved Rohrbach Ro III .

construction

The Ro II was a shoulder-wing aircraft with two engines arranged on tubular frames above the wing. The wings had a rectangular plan, were divided several times and had a profile thickness that remained constant over the span. Rohrbach attached importance to the simple repair of possible corrosion damage by easily removing and riveting the planking. The front and rear spars together with cross braces, the ribs and the planking formed a torsionally and flexurally rigid box spar. The wing nose and end ribs also formed individual boxes that were screwed to the central box spar. These boxes were easy to change and simplified spare parts inventory by dividing them into sections of equal size. In the area of ​​the inner wing, the end rib boxes served as fuel tanks.

The two-tier, narrow boat hull was divided into watertight spaces by several bulkheads and was made of the material duralumin throughout . The crew consisted of four men: a gunner in the bow, pilot and on-board warden in the glazed cockpit and the radio operator in the fuselage behind the wing. The tail surfaces also had a rectangular shape, with the horizontal tail being braced towards the fuselage. The two support floats attached under the wings also had struts to the fuselage and the wing. An auxiliary landing gear with large wheel disks was available for better handling on land.

The drive of the Ro II consisted of two Rolls-Royce Eagle IX engines with 360 hp each. These sat on bearing blocks welded from steel profiles above the wing. The small distance between the engines resulted in good longitudinal stability in single-engine flight. The two two-bladed wooden propellers were well protected from splash water by the high engine position. With a normal load, the start-up process took 25 to 30 seconds. The Ro II could take off, land and maneuver up to a sea ​​state of force 4. The Ro II had a provisional auxiliary sails with which a minimum of maneuverability was given after a ditching.

Technical specifications

Parameter Data
crew 4th
length 16.50 m
span 27.00 m
Empty mass 3700 kg
Takeoff mass 5700 kg
Top speed 165 km / h
Landing speed 110 km / h
Service ceiling 3000 m
Engines 2 × Rolls-Royce Eagle IX with 360 hp each

See also

literature

  • Fred Gütschow: The German flying boats - flying boats, amphibious flying boats and projects from 1909 to the present . Motorbuch Verlag, 1978, ISBN 3-87943-565-0 , pp. 243–245
  • Hans-Jürgen Becker: Seaplanes - flying boats, amphibians, float planes (Die deutsche Luftfahrt Volume 21) , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-7637-6106-3 , p. 130

Web links

Commons : Rohrbach Ro II  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gütschow, 1978 gives a built copy, Karl R. Pawlas: Luftfahrt-Lexikon, 1976, article 3101-100-6, however, two
  2. ^ Photo of the Kastenholm on Flight from July 17, 1924
  3. ↑ Ro II with auxiliary landing gear for landing the flying boat (accessed on January 31, 2017)
  4. ↑ Gütschow, 1978, p. 245