The Dornier Do H Falke was a German single-seat fighter, designed by Claude Dornier and built by Dornier Flugzeugwerke. 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.[1]
Do H Falke | |
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The WP-1 under test with the US Navy in about 1923 | |
Role | Fighter |
Manufacturer | Dornier Flugzeugwerke |
Designer | Claude Dornier |
First flight | 1922 |
Primary user | United States Navy |
Number built | 5[1] |
Developed from | Zeppelin-Lindau D.I |
Variants | Kawasaki KDA-3 |
The company started to design a prototype fighter in the early 1920s, based on earlier wartime designs like the Zeppelin-Lindau D.I. 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 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 subsidiary of Dornier and three by S.D.C.M.P. in Italy,[1] to avoid restrictions on military aircraft production in Germany.[2] It first flew on 1 November 1922, but failed to go into production. One of the Falkes was converted to a floatplane 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 engine. It was evaluated by the United States Navy with the designation Wright WP-1.[2] It performed well, but the Navy considered the monoplane fighter too advanced for its needs.[1]
Data from The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985), 1985, Orbis Publishing, Page 1480
General characteristics
Performance
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dornier Do H Falke. |
Dornier and Zeppelin-Lindau aircraft | |
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Zeppelin-Lindau 1914-1919 | |
Dornier designations 1919-1933 | |
RLM designations 1933-1945 | |
Dornier designations post-1945 | |
See also Claude Dornier and Dornier Museum Friedrichshafen |
United States Navy fighter designations pre-1962 | |
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