Villehad Forssman

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Villehad Henrik Forssman (born April 26, 1884 in Vyborg , Grand Duchy of Finland , † February 10, 1944 in Hanover ) was a Swedish engineer and aircraft designer .

Life

Forssman, born to Swedish parents in Finland, had been in various fields of technology as the inventor tried and since about 1910 in the Russian Empire aircraft and two airships (s. A. Russian aeronautics ) built before the German Reich moved to a private plane for Construct Prince Sigismund of Prussia .

The monoplane - nicknamed the Bulldog because of its blunt, squat front - was completed in early 1914 and the mere fact that Forssman had been entrusted with the construction of an aircraft by a high-ranking member of the Hohenzollern family made him chief engineer the newly established aircraft construction department of Siemens-Schuckert was appointed.

After the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Forssman arranged for Siemens to build a further developed version of its Bulldog as a military aircraft. The flight characteristics of the machine turned out to be so unsatisfactory that the Supreme Army Command refused to accept it.

In response, Forssman shifted the focus of his work to the construction of a giant bomber based on the model of the Russian Sikorski large aircraft Le Grand . Forssman constructed a double-decker that was powered by four 110 hp engines. However, the completed aircraft turned out to be a faulty design, as it was not able to take off significantly from the ground during any test flight. In addition, the bomber, which was partly too fragile and partly too massive, was almost completely uncontrollable due to its rear-heaviness even during the short jumps that it reached during take-off attempts. For almost a year it was not possible to make the machine airworthy despite several modifications. In 1915, Siemens fired Forssman because of his continued failures.

During the course of the First World War, Forssman made another appearance as an aircraft designer: he moved to Cologne in 1917 and the following year became head of aircraft construction at Mannesmann-Mulag in nearby Porz- Westhoven . It is believed that Mannesmann and Forssman came into contact with each other around 1917 through a development order from the Reichsmarinamt for a remote-controlled torpedo (code name "bat"). It is not known whether, in addition to the air torpedoes, aircraft were actually built in Westhoven. According to new findings, Forssman was also responsible for the construction of the unfinished gigantic Mannesmann-Poll three-decker , on which he had been working since 1916.

After the end of the war Forssman remained in Germany, but opened up only in the field of woodworking out: He reported several German and US - patents , which to improvements in the production of pencils and plywood relate.

Villehad Forssman was married to Anna Katarina Pasch. Their son Erik Forssman (1915-2011) was a well-known, until his death year at the University of Freiburg acting art historian .

Trivia

Although Villehad Forssman was a little-known aircraft designer, his character appears in an episode of the television series The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones : In episode 38 Indiana Jones and the Red Baron , Forssman is one of the characters in the plot alongside Anthony Fokker .

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, 1978.
  • Karin von Borbély: German-Baltic Memorial Book: Our Dead of the Years 1939–1947. German-Baltic Genealogical Society , 1991.
  • Erik Forssman, Hermann Reidel: Art and architecture in modern Europe (= studies on art history. Volume 162). Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 2004, ISBN 3-487-12804-7 .
  • Forssman, Villehad . In: Sigrid Andersson (Ed.): Vem är det. Svensk biografisk handbok 1989 . 39th year PA Norstedt & Söners Förlag, Stockholm 1988, ISBN 91-1883082-X (Swedish).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ D'Orcy's airship manual; an international register of airships with a compendium of the airship's elementary mechanics; October 1917; The Century co. New York; Pp. 170–171 ( archive.org image p. 170).
  2. ^ Geschichts- und Heimatverein Rechtsrheinisches Köln eV: Yearbook for History and Regional Studies Volume 5. Self-published, Cologne 1976, Gebhard Aders , Der Riese von Poll, p. 185.
  3. ^ The Forssman Triplane
personal data
SURNAME Forssman, Villehad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Forssman, Villehad Henrik
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish aircraft designer
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Vyborg
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1944
Place of death Hanover