The Dornier Do 12 ''Libelle'' III ("Dragonfly III") was the third of a line of small

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy. Though ...

s of the 1930s. It started with the Dornier A Libelle I and the Dornier A Libelle II, though the Do 12 was not a continuation, but an entirely new aircraft. The aircraft was amphibious and would carry three to four passengers. It was powered by a single

Argus As 10 The Argus As 10 was a German-designed and built, air-cooled 90° cylinder bank-angle inverted V8 "low power" aircraft engine, used mainly in training aircraft such as the Arado Ar 66 and Focke-Wulf Fw 56 Stösser and other small short-range ...

engine initially, then a

Gnome-Rhône 5K The Bristol Titan was a British five-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company in the late 1920s. It had the same size cylinders as the earlier Bristol Mercury engine, (displacing ), and produced ...

e Titan engine, mounted above the wing. It first flew in

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...

and went on to be used by the DFS to tow gliders.

Design

The Do 12 was a high-wing

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

, of usual Dornier all-metal construction, with a two- spar, trapezoidal wing, whose

trailing edge The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ...

was very strongly rounded at the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

. The

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

was of rectangular cross-section. A storage area was in the nose, where equipment, including anchors, could be kept. Behind it, the open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, on the front part of an aircraft, spacecraft, or submersible, from which a pilot controls the vehicle. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls th ...

had two side-by-side seats, with optional dual controls. In the cabin, there were two more seats and a storage area, which could also be fitted with bunks for sleeping. Between the cockpit and cabin were nacelles which accommodated the retracted undercarriage wheels, a first for Dornier, which were lowered or raised manually by a crank. The engine sat on a stand high above the wing, alongside two

fuel tank A fuel tank (also called a petrol tank or gas tank) is a safe container for Flammability, flammable fluids, often gasoline or diesel fuel. Though any storage tank for fuel may be so called, the term is typically applied to part of an engine sys ...

s, in

pusher configuration In aeronautical and naval engineering, pusher configuration is the term used to describe a drivetrain of air- or watercraft with propulsion device(s) after the engine(s). This is in contrast to the more conventional tractor configuration, wh ...

. From the first flight on 23 June 1932, and in the further course of testing, it was obvious that the Argus engine was underpowered, making takeoff distances substantially too long. However, financial difficulties in the company meant that fitting the stronger Gnome-Rhône Titan 5Ke took some time. Father Paul Schulte, a missionary known as the "Flying Priest", used the Do 12 "D-INEZ" for many years and in his various books it plays an important role.

Variants

;Do 12 :powered by a Gnome-Rhône Titan 5Ke five-cylinder radial engine ;Do 12A :powered by an

inverted V-8 engine

Specifications (Do 12)

Notes

External links

* {{RLM aircraft designations 1930s German civil utility aircraft Flying boats Do 012 Amphibious aircraft Single-engined pusher aircraft High-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1932

Design

Variants

Specifications (Do 12)

See also

Notes

External links