Dornier Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturer founded in Friedrichshafen in 1914 by Claude Dornier. Over the course of its long lifespan, the company produced many designs for both the civil and military markets.
Dornier was well known between the two world wars as a manufacturer of large, all-metal flying boats and of land based airliners. The record-breaking 1924 Wal (English: Whale) was used on many long distance flights and the Do X set records for its immense size and weight. Dornier's successful landplane airliners, including the Komet (Comet) and Merkur (Mercury), were used by Lufthansa and other European carriers during the 1920s and early 30s. Dornier built its aircraft outside Germany during much of this period due to the restrictions placed on German aircraft manufacturers by the Treaty of Versailles: locations included Altenrhein, Switzerland, 12km from Zeppelin's Lindau (Bodensee) location. Foreign factories licence-building Dornier products included CMASA and Piaggio in Italy, CASA in Spain, Kawasaki in Japan, and Aviolanda in the Netherlands. Once the Nazi government came to power and abandoned the treaty's restrictions, Dornier resumed production in Germany.
The success of the Wal family encouraged the development of derivatives, and of more advanced successors, such as the Do 18, and Do 24 which saw service in several armed forces, including German, into World War II.
Dornier's most important World War II military aircraft design was the Do 17, nicknamed The Flying Pencil. It first flew in 1934 as a mailplane for Lufthansa but due to its narrow fuselage (hence its nickname) it was not commercially viable and was passed over. Dornier then developed it further as a military aircraft, with a prototype bomber flying in 1935, and in 1937 it was used in by the German Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. Production continued in Germany and it was developed to fill multiple roles for the Luftwaffe. As a medium bomber it saw service during the early part of World War II, particularly during the Battle of Britain. It was later developed into a nightfighter to counter the RAF bomber offensive. Dornier developed the similar looking Do 217 from the Do 17 but it was a larger and completely new design. Dornier also developed the fastest piston-engined fighter of the war, the twin-engined Do 335, which was too late to see service.
After WWII, aircraft production was again forbidden in Germany, and Dornier relocated to Spain and then to Switzerland where the firm provided aeronautical consultancy services until returning to Germany in 1954. Post-war, Dornier re-established itself with successful STOLDo 27 and Do 28utility planes. In 1974 it joined a joint venture with French aircraft manufacturers Dassault-Breguet to develop the Alpha Jet.
In 1983, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) acquired a production licence for the Dornier 228 and manufactured the aircraft for the Asian market. By 2013 a total of 117 Dornier 228 aircraft had been produced by HAL with plans to build 20 more during 2013-14.[1]
In 1985, Dornier became a member of the Daimler-Benz group, integrating its aeronautic assets with the parent company. As part of this transaction, Lindauer Dornier GmbH was spun off, creating a separate, family-owned firm, concentrating on textile machinery design and manufacturing. The rest of the company was split into several subsidiaries for defence, satellites, medtech[clarification needed] and aircraft.
In 1996, the majority of Dornier Aircraft was acquired by Fairchild Aircraft, forming Fairchild Dornier. This company became insolvent in early 2002. Production of its 328 Jet was acquired by US company Avcraft. Asian groups continued to show interest in its 728 version in August 2004, but production was not restarted. Dornier 228 production was taken over by Swiss manufacturer RUAG, who then sold it off to General Atomics in 2020.[2] Other subsidiaries became part of the EADS.
The medtech division was sold to an investment company and now bears the name Dornier MedTech. Dornier Medtech manufactures medical equipment, such as the Dornier S lithotripter, HM3, Compact Delta to treat kidney stones. Dornier MedTech also manufactures laser devices for a wide range of applications.[3]
Additional unbuilt projects include 3 different Schneider Trophy racers from 1924, 1928 and 1931 and a large multi-engine seaplane similar to the Do X with engines buried in the wings.
Dornier GmbH built the Faint Object Camera for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was used from 1990 to 2002. The ESA funded the unit, which actually consists of two complete and independent camera systems designed to provide extremely high resolution, exceeding 0.05 arcseconds. It is designed to view very faint UV light from 115 to 650 nanometers in wavelength.[5] It was the last original instrument on the Hubble when it was replaced by the Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002.
Friedrichshafen is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (Kreisstadt) of the Bodensee district in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. Friedrichshafen has a population of about 58,000.
Dornier may refer to:
Fairchild was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company based at various times in Farmingdale, New York; Hagerstown, Maryland; and San Antonio, Texas.
The Dornier Do J Wal ("whale") is 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.
The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 1983, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) bought a production licence and manufactured another 125 aircraft in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. In July 2017, 63 aircraft were still in airline service.
The Fairchild Dornier 728/928 family was a series of jet-powered regional airliners that was being developed by German-American aviation conglomerate Fairchild Dornier.
The Dornier Seastar is a turboprop-powered amphibious aircraft built largely of composite materials. Developed by Claudius Dornier Jr of Germany, it first flew in 1984. The design is owned by Claudius Jr's son, Conrado, who founded Dornier Seawings AG to continue work on the project after two previous firms, Claudius Dornier Aircraft and Dornier Composite Aircraft, both went into bankruptcy. Development of the aircraft was put on hold without any production Seastars being completed in 1991.
The Dornier 328 is a turboprop-powered commuter airliner. Initially produced by Dornier Luftfahrt GmbH, the firm was acquired in 1996 by Fairchild Aircraft. The resulting firm, named Fairchild-Dornier, manufactured the 328 family in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, conducted sales from San Antonio, Texas, United States, and supported the product line from both locations. A jet-powered version of the aircraft, the Fairchild Dornier 328JET, was also produced.
Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen GmbH was a German aircraft manufacturing company.
RUAG Holding is a Swiss company specialising in aerospace engineering and the defence industry. Its headquarters are located in Bern, while it also has numerous production sites in Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Hungary, Austria and United States, and sales companies in Australia, UK, France, Belgium, Brazil and Malaysia.
The Dornier Delphin was a 1920s German single-engine commercial flying boat built by Dornier Flugzeugwerke. As well as commercial users, single examples were acquired by the United States Navy and the British Royal Navy for evaluation.
The Dornier Komet (Comet), Merkur (Mercury), Do C, Do D, and Do T were a family of aircraft manufactured in Germany during the 1920s, originally as small airliners, but which saw military use as well. The earliest aircraft in the series were basically landplane versions of the Delphin flying boat, and although the Delphin and Komet/Merkur series diverged from each other, design changes and refinements from one family were often incorporated into the other. All variants were braced high-winged single-engine monoplanes with conventional landing gear.
The German city of Friedrichshafen was bombed during World War II as part of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against German war materiel industry, particularly in the targeting of German fighter aircraft production and long range missile development.
The Dornier Do 29 was an experimental aircraft developed by Dornier Flugzeugwerke and the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt in the 1950s, used to test a tilting-propeller system for short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft. The concept was proved successful in flight testing; however, no further development of the system or aircraft was proceeded with, and at the conclusion of its test program the Do 29 was retired.
The Dornier Museum Friedrichshafen is an aerospace museum located in the German town of Friederichshafen near Lake Constance. The museum exhibits the aircraft designs of Claude Dornier, the Dornier company and aerospace products of Airbus.
The Zeppelin-Lindau Rs.IV was a Riesenflugzeug monoplane all metal flying boat with a stressed skin hull and fuselage developed for the Imperial German Navy to perform long range patrols over the North Sea. It had been developed by Claudius Dornier while working for Zeppelin in the town of Lindau.
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