INTEREST IN THE DOX

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1930, Page 3

INTEREST IN THE DOX

GRACEFUL LANDING. BRITISH DOUBTS OF HER SAFETY t United Press Association.—By ElectricTelegraph—Copyright]. LONDON, November 10. The Dornier Dox’-s flight from Amsterdam to the south of England was uneventful. It occupied less than five hours. She was welcomed by a swann of aeroplanes as she approached the Isle of Wight, and was escorted to her base where German officials met Herr Dornier.

j/he passengers included three women—Lady Drunnnond-Hay, Mrs Dornier and the wife of the head of the German aircraft Company.

Captain Christiansen, the Commander of the Dox, won distinction in the war-time as an aviator and a naval officer.

The Dox has excited the greatest interest. Major Turner, of the Daily Telegraph, describes her landing at Calshot as being even smoother and more graceful than that of small craft Others, however, distrust the small reserve power and consider her load per unit of wing. area and per' unit of power to he greater than is regarded as wise according to British standards.

Dr Claudius Dornier is the designer and builder of the world’s largest aeroplane, Do.X. which started out on its successful Atlantic flight on Wednesday. Dr. Dornier was born in Bavaria in 1884. At the Technical College in Munich he secured a diploma in engineering, and at first worked for firms in that .industry. In 1910, however, Count Zeppelin appointed him to his staff at Friedrichshnfen, and entrusted him with the task of designing and constructing a metal aeroplane By the following year he had solved the problem, using thin plates of metal capable of bending. In 1017 the first all-metal machine, built of duralumin and steel, a huge aeroplane, was passed into the German Navy. Next.year Dornier constructed his first- light metal ’plane, and in 1019 his first seaplane. The Italian Locatelli made an ocean flight in 1024 in a Dornier-Wal machine built at Pisa, while Amundsen in 1925 chose one of a similar type for his attempt to fly over the North Pole. Its stabilty saved the life of the explorer. The Versailles Treaty prevented the construction or use of Dornier-Wal aeroplanes in Germany, but they were employed abroad—on the StoclcholmDanzig and South American, services. The Spanish Major Mello Franco used a machine of this type in his ocean flight via La« Palmas to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, covering 6325 miles in 61hr 44min flying time. Dornier built the commercial plane Komet 111., which was very successful in Russia. His passenger-carrying machine, the Dornier-Merkur, carried off twenty world records in 1925 and seven in 1926. '

In the latter year he set up a big factory near Rohrschaclr, on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance, specialising in seaplanes.' Tn 1928 he built the Do.X