Dornier Do J
Encyclopedia
The Dornier Do J Wal ("whale
") was a twin-engine German flying boat
of the 1920s designed by Dornier Flugzeugwerke
. The Do J was designated the Do 16 by the Reich Air Ministry
(RLM) under its aircraft designation system
of 1933.
types) flying boat with a high-mounted strut-braced monoplane
wing. Two piston engines were mounted in tandem in a nacelle
above the wing and in line with the hull
; one engine drove a tractor propeller
and the other drove a pusher propeller. The Do J made its maiden flight on 6 November 1922. The flight, as well as most of the production until 1932, took place in Italy
because a lot of aviation activity in Germany was prohibited after World War I under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Dornier started producing Whales in Germany in 1931, with the production lasting to 1936.
In the military version (Militärwal in German), a crew of two to four rode in an open cockpit
near the nose of the hull. There were one MG-position in the bow in front of the cockpit and one to two amidships. Beginning with Spain, military versions were delivered to Argentina, Chile, the Netherlands for use in their colonies, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and to the end of the production Italy and Germany. The main military users, Spain and the Netherlands, manufactured their own versions under licence. Several countries, notably Italy, Norway, Portugal, Urugay, Great Britain and Germany, used the Wal for military raids.
The civil version (Kabinenwal or Verkehrswal) had a cabin
in the nose, offering space for up to 12 passengers, while the open cockpit was moved further aft. Main users of this version were Germany, Italy, Brazil, Colombia.
The Do J was first powered by two 265 kW (355 hp) Rolls-Royce Eagle IX engines. Later versions used nearly every available engine on the market from makers like Hispano-Suiza
, Napier & Son
, Lorraine-Dietrich
, BMW
, and even the Liberty Engine
. The 10 to-Whales used by Deutsche Luft Hansa
for their mail service across the South Atlantic fom 1934 to 1938 had a range of 3600 km (2,236.9 mi), and a ceiling of 3,500 m (11,480 ft).
Over 250 Wals were built by CMASA and Piaggio
in Italy, CASA
in Spain, Kawasaki
in Japan, Aviolanda
in the Netherlands, and Dornier
in Germany.
Numerous airlines operated Dornier Wals on scheduled passenger and mail services with great success. The source Gandt,1991 (pages 47-48) lists the following carriers: SANA and Aero Espresso of Italy; Aero Lloyd and Deutsche Luft Hansa of Germany; SCADTA of Columbia; Syndicato Condor of Brazil; Nihon Koku Yuso Kaisha of Japan. According to Nicolaou,1996 the Dornier Wal was "easily the greatest commercial success in the history of marine aviation".
The Colombian Air Force
used Dornier Wals in the Colombia-Peru War
in 1932-1933.
The Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen
accompanied by Lincoln Ellsworth
, pilot Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen
, and three other team members used two Dornier seaplane
s in his unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole
in 1925. His two aircraft, N-24 and N-25, landed at 87° 44' north. It was the northernmost latitude reached by any aircraft up to that time. The planes landed a few miles apart without radio contact, yet the crews managed to reunite. One of the aircraft, the N-24 was damaged. Amundsen and his crew worked for over three weeks to prepare an airstrip to take off from ice. They shoveled 600 tons of ice while consuming only one pound (454 g) of daily food rations. In the end, six crew members were packed into the N-25. Riiser-Larsen took off, and they barely became airborne over the cracking ice. They returned triumphant when everyone thought they had been lost forever.
On 18 August 1930, Wolfgang von Gronau started on a transatlantic flight in the same Dornier Wal (D-1422) Amundsen had flown, establishing the northern air route over the Atlantic flying Sylt
(Germany)-Iceland-Greenland-Labrador-New York (4670 miles) in 47 flight hours. In 1932 Wolfgang von Gronau flew a Dornier Wal (D-2053) called the "Grönland Wal" (Greenland Whale) on a round-the-world flight.
In 1926 Ramón Franco
became a national Spanish hero when he piloted the Dornier Plus Ultra on a trans-Atlantic flight. His co-pilot was Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz
; the other crew members were Teniente de Navio (Navy Lieutenant) Juan Manuel Duran and the mechanic Pablo Rada. The Plus Ultra departed from Palos de la Frontera
, in Huelva
, Spain on 22 January and arrived in Buenos Aires
, Argentina
on 26 January. It stopped over at Gran Canaria
, Cape Verde
, Pernambuco
, Rio de Janeiro
and Montevideo
. The 10,270 km journey was completed in 59 hours and 39 minutes.
The event appeared in most of the major newspapers world wide, though some of them underlining the fact that the airplane itself plus the technical expertise were foreign. Throughout the Spanish-speaking world the Spanish aviators were glamorously acclaimed, particularly in Argentina and Spain where thousands gathered at Plaza de Colón in Madrid
. (Wikimedia Commons has media related to Plus Ultra - see below.)
In 1929 Franco attempted another trans-Atlantic flight, this time crashing the airplane to the sea near the Azores
. The crew was rescued days later by the aircraft carrier Eagle
of the British Royal Navy.
The Portuguese military aviator Sarmento de Beires
and his crew made the first night aerial crossing of the South Atlantic in a Dornier J named Argos. The crossing was made on the night of 17 March 1927 from Portuguese Guinea
to Brazil
.
Two Dornier Wals (D-ALOX Passat and D-AKER Boreas) also played an important role in the Third German Antarctic Expedition of 1939.
The biggest and last versions of the Wal, the 8-tonne Wal and 10-tonne Wal (both versions also known as Katapultwal ), were operated by Deutsche Luft Hansa on their South Atlantic airmail service from Stuttgart, Germany to Natal, Brazil. On route proving flights in 1933, and scheduled service beginning in February 1934, Wals flew the trans-ocean sector of the route, between Bathurst
, The Gambia
in West Africa and Fernando de Noronha
an island group off South America. Launched by catapult from converted merchant ships. The Wals had to be catapulted due to the sea states in the mid-Atlantic and because they could not take off from the water under their own power with enough fuel to fly the distance. The first merchant converted as a mid-Atlantic refueling stop was the Westfalen
a passenger liner which became out dated shortly after World War I to carry mail and passengers due to its small size and cruising speed. Wals made over 300 crossings of the South Atlantic in regular mail service.(Gandt, 1991, pages 47–48) The 8-tonne Wal was not a success, only two being built. The six 10-tonne Wals remained in use on the South Atlantic until 1938, although aircraft of more recent design began replacing them from 1937.
From 1925 the French airline Compagnie Générale Aéropostale operated an airmail service on much the same route, from France to Brazil. Originally the mail was flown only as far as Dakar
in West Africa, and then shipped across the South Atlantic by steamer. In 1930 the Aéropostale began making ocean crossings by air, but was not able to fly regularly because their planes were too unreliable. Air France
, which Aéropostale had become a part of, only began operating a regular all air service from Europe to South America in December 1935, nearly two years after Luft Hansa (if the information on the Transatlantic flight
page can be trusted). That Luft Hansa succeeded where Aéropostale failed, in establishing the worlds first regular intercontinental airline service, was due in no small part to the Wals reliability, ruggedness and seaworthyness.
(This section is based on 'Graue&Duggan', Gandt and Nicolaou.)
Germany
Italy
Spanish Republic
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
") was a twin-engine German flying boat
Flying boat
A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a float plane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage...
of the 1920s designed by Dornier Flugzeugwerke
Dornier Flugzeugwerke
Dornier Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturer founded in Friedrichshafen in 1914 by Claudius Dornier. Over the course of its long lifespan, the company produced many notable designs for both the civil and military markets.-History:...
. The Do J was designated the Do 16 by the Reich Air Ministry
Reich Air Ministry
thumb|300px|The Ministry of Aviation, December 1938The Ministry of Aviation was a government department during the period of Nazi Germany...
(RLM) under its aircraft designation system
RLM aircraft designation system
The German Air Ministry had a system for aircraft designation which was an attempt by the aviation bureaucracy of the Third Reich to standardize and produce an identifier for each aircraft type produced in Germany...
of 1933.
Design and development
The Do J was a fairly modern (compared to World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
types) flying boat with a high-mounted strut-braced monoplane
Monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...
wing. Two piston engines were mounted in tandem in a nacelle
Nacelle
The nacelle is a cover housing that holds engines, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. In some cases—for instance in the typical "Farman" type "pusher" aircraft, or the World War II-era P-38 Lightning—an aircraft's cockpit may also be housed in a nacelle, which essentially fills the...
above the wing and in line with the hull
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...
; one engine drove a tractor propeller
Tractor configuration
thumb|right|[[Evektor-Aerotechnik|Aerotechnik EV97A Eurostar]], a tractor configuration aircraft, being pulled into position by its pilot for refuelling....
and the other drove a pusher propeller. The Do J made its maiden flight on 6 November 1922. The flight, as well as most of the production until 1932, took place in Italy
Marina di pisa
Marina di Pisa is a seaside resort of Tuscany, in central Italy.It is a frazione of the provincial capital of Pisa, which lies about 10 km to the east.-Geography:...
because a lot of aviation activity in Germany was prohibited after World War I under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Dornier started producing Whales in Germany in 1931, with the production lasting to 1936.
In the military version (Militärwal in German), a crew of two to four rode in an open cockpit
Cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. Most modern cockpits are enclosed, except on some small aircraft, and cockpits on large airliners are also physically separated from the cabin...
near the nose of the hull. There were one MG-position in the bow in front of the cockpit and one to two amidships. Beginning with Spain, military versions were delivered to Argentina, Chile, the Netherlands for use in their colonies, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and to the end of the production Italy and Germany. The main military users, Spain and the Netherlands, manufactured their own versions under licence. Several countries, notably Italy, Norway, Portugal, Urugay, Great Britain and Germany, used the Wal for military raids.
The civil version (Kabinenwal or Verkehrswal) had a cabin
Aircraft cabin
An aircraft cabin is the section of an aircraft in which passengers travel. At cruising altitudes of modern commercial aircraft the surrounding atmosphere is too thin to breathe without an oxygen mask, so cabins are pressurized at a higher pressure than ambient pressure at altitude.In commercial...
in the nose, offering space for up to 12 passengers, while the open cockpit was moved further aft. Main users of this version were Germany, Italy, Brazil, Colombia.
The Do J was first powered by two 265 kW (355 hp) Rolls-Royce Eagle IX engines. Later versions used nearly every available engine on the market from makers like Hispano-Suiza
Hispano-Suiza
Hispano-Suiza was a Spanish automotive and engineering firm, best known for its luxury cars and aviation engines in the pre-World War II period of the twentieth century. In 1923, its French subsidiary became a semi-autonomous partnership with the parent company and is now part of the French SAFRAN...
, Napier & Son
Napier Lion
The Napier Lion was a 12-cylinder broad arrow configuration aircraft engine built by Napier & Son starting in 1917, and ending in the 1930s. A number of advanced features made it the most powerful engine of its day, and kept it in production long after contemporary designs had stopped production...
, Lorraine-Dietrich
Lorraine-Dietrich
Lorraine-Dietrich was a French automobile and aircraft engine manufacturer from 1896 until 1935, created when railway locomotive manufacturer Société Lorraine des Anciens Etablissments de Dietrich and Cie branched into the manufacture of automobiles...
, BMW
BMW VI
|-See also:- External links :...
, and even the Liberty Engine
Liberty L-12
The Liberty L-12 was a 27 litre water-cooled 45° V-12 aircraft engine of 400 horsepower designed both for a high power-to-weight ratio and for ease of mass production.-History:...
. The 10 to-Whales used by Deutsche Luft Hansa
Deutsche Luft Hansa
Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G. was a German airline, serving as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and throughout the Third Reich.-1920s:Deutsche Luft Hansa was founded on 6 January 1926 in Berlin...
for their mail service across the South Atlantic fom 1934 to 1938 had a range of 3600 km (2,236.9 mi), and a ceiling of 3,500 m (11,480 ft).
Over 250 Wals were built by CMASA and Piaggio
Piaggio
Piaggio based in Pontedera, Italy encompasses seven brands of scooters, motorcycles and compact commercial vehicles. As the fourth largest producer of scooters and motorcycles in the world, Piaggio produces more than 600,000 vehicles annually, with five research and development centers, more than...
in Italy, CASA
Construcciones Aeronáuticas
EADS CASA was a Spanish aircraft manufacturer, previously Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA . It became the Spanish branch of EADS in 1999, and was absorbed by Airbus Military in 2009.-History:...
in Spain, Kawasaki
Kawasaki Heavy Industries
is an international corporation based in Japan. It has headquarters in both Chūō-ku, Kobe and Minato, Tokyo.The company is named after its founder Shōzō Kawasaki and has no connection with the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa....
in Japan, Aviolanda
Aviolanda
Aviolanda was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer. The company was established in December 1926 by H. Adolph Burgerhout. Aviolanda mainly produced licenced built aircraft, such as the Dornier Do-24 flying boat, Gloster Meteor jet, Hawker Hunter jet and the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. It was eventually...
in the Netherlands, and Dornier
Dornier Flugzeugwerke
Dornier Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturer founded in Friedrichshafen in 1914 by Claudius Dornier. Over the course of its long lifespan, the company produced many notable designs for both the civil and military markets.-History:...
in Germany.
Numerous airlines operated Dornier Wals on scheduled passenger and mail services with great success. The source Gandt,1991 (pages 47-48) lists the following carriers: SANA and Aero Espresso of Italy; Aero Lloyd and Deutsche Luft Hansa of Germany; SCADTA of Columbia; Syndicato Condor of Brazil; Nihon Koku Yuso Kaisha of Japan. According to Nicolaou,1996 the Dornier Wal was "easily the greatest commercial success in the history of marine aviation".
The Colombian Air Force
Colombian Air Force
The Colombian Air Force or FAC is the Air Force of the Republic of Colombia.The Colombian Air Force is one of the three institutions of the Armed Forces of Colombia, charge according to the 1991 Constitution of the work to exercise and maintain control of Colombia's airspace to defend the...
used Dornier Wals in the Colombia-Peru War
Colombia-Peru War
The Colombia–Peru War was an armed conflict between the Republic of Colombia and the Republic of Peru.-Civilian takeover:...
in 1932-1933.
Pioneering Flights
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....
accompanied by Lincoln Ellsworth
Lincoln Ellsworth
Lincoln Ellsworth was an arctic explorer from the United States.-Birth:He was born on May 12, 1880 to James Ellsworth and Eva Frances Butler in Chicago, Illinois...
, pilot Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen
Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen
Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen was a Norwegian aviation pioneer, polar explorer and businessman. Among his achievements, he is generally regarded as the founder of the Royal Norwegian Air Force....
, and three other team members used two Dornier seaplane
Seaplane
A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft...
s in his unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
in 1925. His two aircraft, N-24 and N-25, landed at 87° 44' north. It was the northernmost latitude reached by any aircraft up to that time. The planes landed a few miles apart without radio contact, yet the crews managed to reunite. One of the aircraft, the N-24 was damaged. Amundsen and his crew worked for over three weeks to prepare an airstrip to take off from ice. They shoveled 600 tons of ice while consuming only one pound (454 g) of daily food rations. In the end, six crew members were packed into the N-25. Riiser-Larsen took off, and they barely became airborne over the cracking ice. They returned triumphant when everyone thought they had been lost forever.
On 18 August 1930, Wolfgang von Gronau started on a transatlantic flight in the same Dornier Wal (D-1422) Amundsen had flown, establishing the northern air route over the Atlantic flying Sylt
Sylt
Sylt is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Frisia...
(Germany)-Iceland-Greenland-Labrador-New York (4670 miles) in 47 flight hours. In 1932 Wolfgang von Gronau flew a Dornier Wal (D-2053) called the "Grönland Wal" (Greenland Whale) on a round-the-world flight.
In 1926 Ramón Franco
Ramón Franco
Ramón Franco y Bahamonde Salgado Pardo de Andrade , was a Galician pioneer of aviation, a political figure and brother of later dictator Francisco Franco...
became a national Spanish hero when he piloted the Dornier Plus Ultra on a trans-Atlantic flight. His co-pilot was Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz
Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz
Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz was a Spanish aviator and politician. He joined the Army at the age of 15 and developed an interest in planes. He was the co-pilot of the Plus Ultra as it completed a Trans-Atlantic flight in 1926...
; the other crew members were Teniente de Navio (Navy Lieutenant) Juan Manuel Duran and the mechanic Pablo Rada. The Plus Ultra departed from Palos de la Frontera
Palos de la Frontera
Palos de la Frontera is a town and municipality located in the southwestern Spanish province of Huelva, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is situated some from the provincial capital, Huelva...
, in Huelva
Huelva (province)
Huelva is a province of southern Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is bordered by Portugal, the provinces of Badajoz, Seville, and Cádiz, and the Atlantic Ocean. Its capital is Huelva....
, Spain on 22 January and arrived in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
on 26 January. It stopped over at Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria is the second most populous island of the Canary Islands, with a population of 838,397 which constitutes approximately 40% of the population of the archipelago...
, Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
, Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
and Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
. The 10,270 km journey was completed in 59 hours and 39 minutes.
The event appeared in most of the major newspapers world wide, though some of them underlining the fact that the airplane itself plus the technical expertise were foreign. Throughout the Spanish-speaking world the Spanish aviators were glamorously acclaimed, particularly in Argentina and Spain where thousands gathered at Plaza de Colón in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. (Wikimedia Commons has media related to Plus Ultra - see below.)
In 1929 Franco attempted another trans-Atlantic flight, this time crashing the airplane to the sea near the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
. The crew was rescued days later by the aircraft carrier Eagle
HMS Eagle (1918)
HMS Eagle was an early aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy. Ordered by Chile as the Almirante Cochrane, she was laid down before World War I. In early 1918 she was purchased by Britain for conversion to an aircraft carrier; this work was finished in 1924...
of the British Royal Navy.
The Portuguese military aviator Sarmento de Beires
Sarmento de Beires
José Manuel Sarmento de Beires was a Portuguese Army officer and an aviation pioneer....
and his crew made the first night aerial crossing of the South Atlantic in a Dornier J named Argos. The crossing was made on the night of 17 March 1927 from Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
.
Two Dornier Wals (D-ALOX Passat and D-AKER Boreas) also played an important role in the Third German Antarctic Expedition of 1939.
South Atlantic air mail
Banjul
-Transport:Ferries sail from Banjul to Barra. The city is served by the Banjul International Airport. Banjul is on the Trans–West African Coastal Highway connecting it to Dakar and Bissau, and will eventually provide a paved highway link to 11 other nations of ECOWAS.Banjul International Airport...
, The Gambia
The Gambia
The Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambia , is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west....
in West Africa and Fernando de Noronha
Fernando de Noronha
Fernando de Noronha is an archipelago of 21 islands and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, offshore from the Brazilian coast. The main island has an area of and had a population of 3,012 in the year 2010...
an island group off South America. Launched by catapult from converted merchant ships. The Wals had to be catapulted due to the sea states in the mid-Atlantic and because they could not take off from the water under their own power with enough fuel to fly the distance. The first merchant converted as a mid-Atlantic refueling stop was the Westfalen
SS Westfalen
SS Westfalen was a German ship built in 1906 at J.C. Tecklenborg in Geestemünde.In the early 1930s the Westfalen was converted into a seaplane tender to serve as both weather reporting and refueling station for Dornier Wal flying boats of Lufthansa carrying mail trans-Atlantic between Europe and...
a passenger liner which became out dated shortly after World War I to carry mail and passengers due to its small size and cruising speed. Wals made over 300 crossings of the South Atlantic in regular mail service.(Gandt, 1991, pages 47–48) The 8-tonne Wal was not a success, only two being built. The six 10-tonne Wals remained in use on the South Atlantic until 1938, although aircraft of more recent design began replacing them from 1937.
From 1925 the French airline Compagnie Générale Aéropostale operated an airmail service on much the same route, from France to Brazil. Originally the mail was flown only as far as Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...
in West Africa, and then shipped across the South Atlantic by steamer. In 1930 the Aéropostale began making ocean crossings by air, but was not able to fly regularly because their planes were too unreliable. Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
, which Aéropostale had become a part of, only began operating a regular all air service from Europe to South America in December 1935, nearly two years after Luft Hansa (if the information on the Transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. A transatlantic flight may proceed east-to-west, originating in Europe or Africa and terminating in North America or South America, or it may go in the reverse direction, west-to-east...
page can be trusted). That Luft Hansa succeeded where Aéropostale failed, in establishing the worlds first regular intercontinental airline service, was due in no small part to the Wals reliability, ruggedness and seaworthyness.
(This section is based on 'Graue&Duggan', Gandt and Nicolaou.)
Operators
- Argentine Naval AviationArgentine Naval AviationThe Argentine Naval Aviation is the naval aviation branch of the Argentine Navy and one of its four operational commands...
- VarigVarigVARIG was the first airline founded in Brazil, in 1927. From 1965 until 1990 it was Brazil's leading and almost only international airline...
- Syndicato Condor
- SCADTASCADTAThe Colombian-German Air Transport Society , or SCADTA, was the world's second airline, and the first airline of the American continent, operating from 1919 until World War II. After the war, SCADTA merged with Colombian regional carrier Colombian Air Service , or SACO. Together, SCADTA and SACO...
- Colombian Air ForceColombian Air ForceThe Colombian Air Force or FAC is the Air Force of the Republic of Colombia.The Colombian Air Force is one of the three institutions of the Armed Forces of Colombia, charge according to the 1991 Constitution of the work to exercise and maintain control of Colombia's airspace to defend the...
Germany
- Condor SyndikatCondor SyndikatCondor Syndikat was a German trade company, with headquarters in Berlin, that operated airline services in Brazil while also providing aircraft, maintenance and aviation information. It is also the mother company of the Brazilian airlines Varig and Syndicato Condor, which later became Serviços...
Italy- Dutch Naval Aviation Service
Spanish RepublicSecond Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
- Spanish Republican Air ForceSpanish Republican Air ForceThe Spanish Republican Air Force, , was the air arm of the Second Spanish Republic, the legally established government of Spain between 1931 and 1939...
Kingdom of YugoslaviaAccidents
- 3 December 1930: a Syndicato Condor Dornier Wal registration P-BACA crashed on Guanabara BayGuanabara BayGuanabara Bay is an oceanic bay located in southeastern Brazil in the state of Rio de Janeiro. On its western shore lies the city of Rio de Janeiro, and on its eastern shore the cities of Niterói and São Gonçalo. Four other municipalities surround the bay's shores...
while attempting to avoid a collision against another aircraft. Six passengers and four crew members died.
Specifications Dornier Do J Wal
Specifications Dornier Do J IIfBas 10-ton Wal
Further reading
- M. Michiel van der Mey: "Dornier Wal a Light coming over the Sea". LoGisma editore, 2005, English, ISBN 88-87621-51-9
- M. Michiel van der Mey: "Dornier Wal Vliegboot". 1986, Dutch, ISBN 90-9001445-4
- M. Michiel van der Mey: "Der Einsatz der Heinkel Katapulte". 2002, German
External links
- Dornier Wal Documentation Center
- http://www.airwar.ru/enc/other1/doj.html
- "Flyers Of The Sea", October 1931, Popular Mechanics