Let Let Let – Warplanes

Technical details HD-15:

Engines: Gnome-Rhône Jupiter VI radial engine of 450 hp
Wing span: 12.40 m
Length: 10.70 m
Max. speed: 172 km/h
Service ceiling: 4300 m
All-up weight: 2350 kg

Heinkel He-57 Heron

The last flying boat from Heinkel, in fact being an amphibian, was the He-57 Heron. It was a small civil amphibian with a capacity of 4 passengers. The crew of two and the passengers were housed in a fully enclosed cabin. The wheels could be lifted partially when it was operated from the water. It had a single engine mounted in a central streamlined pod on top of the fuselage. It had an all-metal hull and a single strutted wing. Also the wing was made from metal with only the control surfaces covered with fabric. It was flown for the first time in 1929, but Heinkel failed to find customers and only one with civil registration D-2067 was built. It was finally sold for 12600 Mark to the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule and used from List on the isle of Sylt.

A picture of the quite unknown He-57 Heron

Technical details:

Engines: Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engine of 400 hp
Wing span: 16.00 m
Length: 11.80 m
Max. speed: 180 km/h
Service ceiling: 3800 m
All-up weight: 2520 kg

Dornier Do-X

During a visit of Claudius Dornier in 1929 to the Reichsverbandes der Deutschen Luftfahrindustrie (the State Units of German Aviation Industry) he more or less received unlimited funds for construction of a giant flying boat. It was not specially intended to be a big commercial success and it was also not intended for mass production but most likely It was intended as a big propaganda ’stunt’ to show what the German aviation industry was capable of! Under the designation Do-X Dornier presented a design using the most modern building techniques in combination with the lowest risks for technical failure. The result, as shown in the wooden 1:1 scale mock-up displayed in the airship hall at Friedrichshafen-Löwental, was a twelve-engine monoplane all-metal flying boat with the engines mounted in six separate tandem nacelles on top of the wing. For construction of the new giant flying boat, a special hall was built at the Altenrhein works on the bank of Lake Constance in Switzerland. The construction was completed in 1929 and the first flight took place on 12 July 1929 by Dornier chief test pilot Richard Wagner.

A picture of the lesser known Italian Do-X3 I-ABBN

This first flight was at that time front-page news of all newspapers! The Do-X kept attracting the front page of the newspapers when it made on 21 October 1929 a flight with 169 people on board. During the flight testing it was discovered that the Jupiter radial engines had the tendency to overheat, especially the rear engines. To improve reliability on long-range flights they were replaces by more powerful Curtiss Conqueror liquid-cooled engines of 640 hp (giving more than 100 hp per engine extra than the Jupiter). Where the Jupiters were placed on the wing using streamlined pylons, just simple but sturdy streamlined struts were used for the Conquerors. In this form, the Do-X resumed its flight on 4 August 1930.

The Dornier Do-X in its original version with Jupiter engines on the slipway of the Dornier works at Altenrhein. We see here an official Dornier shot of the photographic activities before all 169 passengers boarded the plane on 29 October 1929. This picture was included in the first-flight souvenir book that was presented by Dornier! (with special thanks to mr. Bob de Nies for borrowing the first-flight Do-X book).

Related posts:

1. German flying boats Part 2: 1935-2000
2. Dutch flying boats and amphibians
3. French flying boats and amphibians
4. Dornier Do-28 amphibian for the MLD
5. Vanneau history

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