Galerie

Dornier and His Do-X Flying Boat.

Dr. Dornier's transatlantic dreamliner drops into the post-World War One time frame as a late entry, making its first flight in May, 1929. Claudius Dornier was born in Komton, Germany on May 14, 1847, and his life turned out to be a fascinating drama in the early days of aviation. He exhibted all of the qualities of entrepreneur, but with the touch of a politician, wich he used during the time of extreme difficulty with the Allied Commissioin's control over the German construction of aircraft. Take a look at the Do-X above and ask how he expected to get approval for a plane with 12 engines, when the highest allowed horsepower was 1.000/plane, according to the limits of the Versailles Treaty. Dornier thought that he had ways of avoiding that obstruction to progress.
After graduating from the Technical High School in Munich in 1910, Dornier was immediately grabbed by Count von Zeppelin and placed in charge of a new facility on the Bodensee, to make use of his expertise with metal structures. His first project was a tri-motored flying boat, the Zeppelin-Landau Rs 1-a metal ship with a 142-foot wingspan. It never left the ground due to an unfortunate accident, but he built three more before the end of the war. . . .

Danzig Report Nr. 150 - 2011, page 14.