Slingship
Schleuderschiff was the name used by the German Air Force from 1938 to 1945 for ships specially built for them that could launch seaplanes and flying boats for long-range reconnaissance or sea rescue tasks using an airplane catapult (“sling”) . Slingers were thus a subgroup of catapult ships .
history
The German Lufthansa had since 1933 with the converted to catapult ship cargo ship Westfalen and then (with three other ships Swabia , Ostmark and Friesland ) successfully demonstrated in their South Atlantic postal and airline service catapulting of relatively heavy and suitable for long-haul flights and equipped flying boats from the ship's deck. The flying boats landed on a so-called jam sail by the ship.
This led the Luftwaffe to consider using the technology of floating bases with catapults, cranes, refueling and maintenance facilities for long-range reconnaissance tasks. Accordingly, the 1,086-ton sparrowhawk was launched at the Stülcken shipyard in Hamburg in 1938 as the Luftwaffe's first ejector ship . This was followed in 1942 by two considerably larger ships built at the F. Schichau shipyard in Pillau , the Bussard and the Falke , both with a displacement of 2,040 t . All three were based in many respects on the design of the Ostmark , built for Lufthansa in 1936 , in which almost the entire upper deck was used to accommodate the catapult system and an additional aircraft parking area.
The three ships had a long, flat upper deck with a Heinkel - aircraft catapult on the front ship, an aircraft floor space behind it and a crane company Kampnagel at the rear. The launch sling could accelerate flying boats of the types Dornier Do 18 , Dornier Do 24 and Blohm & Voss BV 138 within 2.5 seconds with up to 4 g , so that at the end of the catapult process they reached a speed of 180 km / h. The Sparrowhawk had an 18-ton catapult and an 18-ton crane; the buzzard and the falcon each had a 20-ton catapult and a 20-ton crane.
During the Second World War , these three slingshots, as well as three of the four Lufthansa catapult ships commandeered by the Luftwaffe, were used by the Luftwaffe in the North and Baltic Seas and on the Norwegian coast. All three survived the war.
Remarks
- ↑ The fourth, the Ostmark , was torpedoed and sunk by a British submarine off the coast of western France on September 24, 1940, before it could even be used .
literature
- Simon Mitterhuber: The German catapult planes and slingshots: development, use and technology . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn, 2003, ISBN 3-7637-6244-2 .
- Erich Gröner: The German warships 1815–1945 ; Volume 7.
- Dieter Jung, Berndt Wenzel, Arno Abendroth: Ships and boats of the German sea pilots, 1912–1976 . 1st edition, Motor Buch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1977, ISBN 3-87943-469-7 .
- Jörg-M. Hormann: Flight log Atlantic: German catapult flights 1927-1939 . Delius Klasing, Bielefeld, 2007, ISBN 3-7688-1973-6 .
- Elmar Wilczek: "German slingshots, Heinkel catapults and catapult flying boats". In: Luft und See , Volume III / 2008, German Airship and Naval Aviation Museum Aeronauticum, Nordholz, 2008