DORNIER DO-X

Video from the channel Mochilando na Aviação about Dornier Do X, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:42. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Documentary.

An explainer piece in Portuguese about the Dornier Do X, the 1929 German flying boat the video presents as the largest and heaviest flying boat of its time. It covers its origins, its characteristics, the demonstration voyage to America and the fate of the three examples built.

The project was funded by the German Ministry of Transport and, according to the video, aimed to get around the Treaty of Versailles, which barred Germany from building very fast, long-range aircraft. Its main rival was the Tupolev ANT-20. The public admired it, but the few airlines of the time didn't buy it, and the Great Depression put an end to any plans to operate it commercially. The German example ended up on display and was destroyed in an RAF bombing raid during the Second World War; tail fragments are on show at the Dornier Museum.

It carried between 10 and 14 crew and 66 to 100 passengers, measured 40 metres in length and had a range of up to 1,700 km with a cruising speed of around 170 km/h. Its cabin, with a smoking lounge, bar, dining room and seats that converted into beds, imitated ocean liners. In October 1929 it flew with 169 people on board, a record that took around 20 years to be broken. On the voyage to America, a fire in Lisbon burned much of the left wing; it then crossed the Atlantic to Natal and continued on to the United States. The other two examples, Umberto Maddalena (Do X2, 1931) and Alessandro Guidoni (Do X3, 1932), went to Italy, where the air force used them for demonstrations, cruises and training without ever carrying passengers.