Dornier Do J Wal: Немецкий гидросамолет 1920-х годов

1922 multi role flying boat family by Dornier

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 Do J had a high mounted strut braced parasol wing with two piston engines mounted in tandem in a central nacelle above the wing; one engine drove a tractor and the other drove a pusher propeller. The hull made use of Claudius Dornier's patented sponsons on the hull's sides, first pioneered with the earlier, Dornier designed Zeppelin Lindau Rs. IV flying boat late in World War I. The Do J made its maiden flight on 6 November 1922. The flight, as well as most production until 1932, took place in Italy because of the restrictions on aviation in Germany after World War I under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Dornier began to produce the Wal in Germany in 1931; production went on until 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 was one machine gun position in the bow in front of the cockpit and one or two amidships. Beginning with Spain, military versions were delivered to Argentina, Chile and the Netherlands for use in their colonies; examples were also sent to Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and to the end of production Italy and Germany. The main military users, Spain and the Netherlands, manufactured their own versions under licence. Several countries, notably Italy, Norway, Portugal, Uruguay and Germany, employed the Wal for military tasks. The civil version (Kabinenwal or Verkehrswal) (pages 47–48) lists the following carriers: SANA and Aero Espresso of Italy; Aero Lloyd and Deutsche Luft Hansa of Germany; SCADTA of Colombia; 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 Wals in the Colombia–Peru War in 1932–1933. The Dornier Do 18 was a completely updated successor to the Wal but shared little more than the general configuration.

The Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen accompanied by Lincoln Ellsworth, pilot Hjalmar Riiser Larsen, and three other team members used two Dornier seaplanes 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 the 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 triumphantly after widely being presumed dead. 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 from Sylt (Germany) Iceland Greenland Labrador New York ) in 47 flight hours. In 1932 von Gronau flew a Dornier Wal (D 2053) called the "Grönland Wal" (Greenland Whale) on a round the world flight. In 1926 the captain Ramón Franco became a national Spanish hero when he piloted the Plus Ultra on a trans Atlantic flight, following the route made by the Portuguese aviators Sacadura Cabral and Gago Coutinho in the first flight across the South Atlantic in 1922. 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 the Province of 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 major newspapers worldwide, although some of them underlined the fact that the airplane itself, plus the technical expertise were foreign. Throughout the Spanish speaking world, the Spanish aviators were wildly acclaimed, particularly in Argentina and Spain where thousands gathered at Plaza de Colón in Madrid. In 1929 Franco attempted another trans Atlantic flight, this time crashing the airplane in the sea near the Azores. The crew was rescued days later by the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle of the British Royal Navy. The Portuguese military aviator major Sarmento de Beires and his crew (captain Jorge de Castilho as navigator and lieutenant Manuel Gouveia as flight engineer) made the first aerial crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by night in a Dornier J named Argos. The crossing was made on the night of the 16 to 17 March 1927, from the Bijagós Archipelago in Portuguese Guinea to Fernando de Noronha island in Brazil. Two Dornier Wals (D ALOX Passat and D AKER Boreas) also played an important role in the Third German Antarctic Expedition of 1939.