CANT Z.506 Airone (Heron) Italian three engine floatplane which initially served as a transport and postal aircraft with the Italian airline Ala Littoria. Later used as a reconnaissance aircraft, bomber and air-sea rescue aeroplane during the war with the Regia Aeronautica. First flew 18.8.1935
L-R: Staffelkapitän 11./JG 5 Eismeer, Hauptmann Erich Schreiber, unknown Leutnant, future 1 victory and Gruppenkommandeur IV./JG 5 Hauptmann Hans Kriegel, Staffelkapitän 10./JG 5 Oberleutnant Hans Schneider and unknown, Copenhagen-Værløse airfield in the spring of 1943. Behind is Kriegel's Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2/R6 Dita 13. Note the double chevron (<<) staff insignia denoting a Gruppenkommandeur (Group Commander)
Rear view of the Daimler-Benz DB 602 engine on display in the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. A water pump on each side of the engine provided cooling water to a bank of cylinders. The DB 602 engine proved to be an outstanding and reliable power plant for LZ 129 Hindenburg. However, its capabilities will forever be overshadowed by the Hindenburg disaster.
Two DB 602 engines still exist and are on display; one is in the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and the other is in the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, in Le Bourget, France. Although the DB 602 was not used on a wide scale, it did serve as the basis for the Mercedes-Benz 500 series marine engines that powered a variety of Kriegsmarine (German navy) S-Boats (Schnellboot/fast attack boats) during the war
On 11 November 1937 at the Augsburg-Haunstetten airfield, Dr.-Ing. Hermann Wurster set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world record for speed when he flew a prototype Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG Bf 109 V13 (D-IPKY) WNr 1050 to an average speed of 610.95 kph/379.63 mph in four passes over a 3 kilometre course. This broke the speed record set two years earlier by Howard Hughes with his Hughes H-1 Special (NR258Y) by 43.83 kph/27.23 mph.
L-R: Unknown, Dipl-Ing Robert Lusser (then-chief of project development at BFW and co-designer of the 109),
Dr-Ing Hermann Wurster wearing goggles, flight helmet and parachute), Dr-Ing Hubert Bauer of BFW, Professor Dr-Ing Willy Messerschmitt and unknown. The two unknowns are possibly Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM/German Air Ministry) representatives.
Lusser and Bauer were instrumental in modifying the standard airframe and fitting the highly boosted, experimental Daimler-Benz DB 601 Re III engine (which briefly pushed output to 1,660 hp). They were on the airfield to oversee engine tuning, fuel mixtures, and mechanical reliability. Robert Lusser moved to Heinkel shortly after BFW took the record which had been set, ironically, by Heinkel two months earlier
The LFG (Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft) Roland G.1 was a large prototype single-engine biplane bomber built in 1915. It had a single engine buried in the fuselage driving pusher configuration propellers mounted on outriggers. It had a wingspan of over 30 metres (98 ft), extremely large for the time. Although it had twin pusher propellers mounted between the wings and an Idflieg G designation (heavy bomber), it had only a single engine, mounted in the fuselage over the centre of gravity and linked to the propellers by gears and shafts. HAZET radiators mounted on the sides of the fuselage between the wings provided cooling to the adjacent engine.
The G.I had unstaggered unequal span wings, its fuselage was flat sided with a rounded nose containing the gunner's position. The pilot's cockpit was immediately behind the gunner but ahead of the wing leading edge. The Maybach Mb.IVa water-cooled six cylinder inline engine was directly behind the pilot driving two propellers placed on outriggers in the inner bays. The undercarriage was conventional, with wheels on a single axle mounted on a pair of V-struts to the fuselage. There was also a tail skid and a pair of smaller wheels mounted under the nose to avoid nose-overs. Only one was made, I'm unsure of its fate. Image from the Ray Wagner Collection
Junkers G-38 Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg (D-2500) on the ground and G-38 (D-AZUR) in flight. Text reads: Junkers' all-metal aircraft
Generalfeldmarschall v. Hindenburg, with its sister aircraft D-AZUR flying above, Berlin, May 1933. Only two G.38s were made, D-2000 crashed in 1936.
Fortunately, there were no casualties but Deutsche Luft Hansa wrote off the aircraft due to the amount of damage it sustained. The D-2500 on the other hand flew with the airline for almost a decade. Once WWII started she was conscripted into military service and became a transport aircraft for the Luftwaffe. She was destroyed by the RAF on the runway in Athens in May 1941
1919 aviation poster advertises the Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (LVG), a prominent German aircraft manufacturer active during WWI and the post-war era. Artwork by Fritz Neumann-Fred, showcasing an expressive, low-angle perspective of an LVG biplane in flight
Vintage travel poster featuring a Junkers Ju 52/3m operated by Aeroposta Argentina, promoting the Buenos Aires to Río Grande route in Tierra del Fuego during the 1930s
The mighty 12-engined Dornier Do X (D-1929) moored along a wooden ramp on the Müggelsee (Lake Müggel), Berlin, 24 May 1932. This event marked the highly publicised homecoming of the world's biggest flying boat at the end of its multi-continent tour. It returned from New York via Newfoundland and the Azores, and it was greeted upon arrival at the lake by a crowd estimated at 200,000 spectators. In 1934 it was disassembled and transported to the Deutsches Luftfahrtmuseum and reassembled inside for permanent display. It was completely destroyed along with countless other priceless aircraft by the RAF in 1943