The Dornier Do H ''Falke'' was a German single-seat
fighter, designed by
Claude Dornier and built by
Dornier Flugzeugwerke
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.
History
Originally ...
. Although an advanced design for its time, being evaluated by the
United States Navy as the Wright WP-1, it did not go into production.
Development
The company started to design a
prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
fighter in the early 1920s, based on earlier wartime designs like the
Zeppelin-Lindau D.I
The Zeppelin D.I, or Zeppelin-Lindau D.I or Zeppelin D.I (Do), as named in German documents, also sometimes referred to postwar as the Dornier D.I or Dornier-Zeppelin D.I, for the designer,Grosz, 1998, p.12 was a single-seat all-metal stressed s ...
. It was an all-metal high-wing
cantilever monoplane, with the wing above the
fuselage on four small struts. It had a conventional cantilever tail unit and a fixed
tailskid landing gear. The pilot had an open
cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft.
The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...
just behind the
trailing edge of the wing. The aircraft was powered by a Hispano-Suiza piston engine located in the nose. Two aircraft were built by the
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
*Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
subsidiary of Dornier and three by S.D.C.M.P. in Italy,
to avoid restrictions on military aircraft production in Germany.
[Swanborough and Bowers 1976, p. 496.] It first flew on 1 November 1922, but failed to go into production. One of the ''Falke''s was converted to a
floatplane
A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...
in 1923, powered by a 261 kW (350 hp)
BMW IVa V-12 engine, as the Dornier Seefalke.
One ''Seefalke'' was shipped to the
United States of America by the Wright Aeronautical Company, who fitted it with a licence-built
Wright-Hisso H-3
The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914, and was the most commonly used liquid-cooled engine in the aircraft of the Entente Powers during the First World War. The original Hispano-Suiza 8A ...
engine. It was evaluated by the United States Navy with the designation Wright WP-1.
It performed well, but the Navy considered the monoplane fighter too advanced for its needs.
Operators
;
*
United States Navy
Specifications (Dornier-Wright WP-1)
See also
Notes
Bibliography
*''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft'', (Part Work 1982-1985), Orbis Publishing
*Andrade, John. U.S. Military Aircraft Designations and Serials since 1909, Midland Counties Publications, 1979, .
*Swanborough, Gordon and Bowers, Peter M. ''United States Navy Aircraft since 1911''. London: Putnam. Second Edition, 1976. .
{{Authority control
1920s German fighter aircraft
Do H
Wright aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Parasol-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1922