Wargaming and RAF Museum Announce Dornier 17 Final Resting Place

[Thagarr]

In 2010 the he Royal Air Force Museum London announced the discovery of a Dornier Do 17, a light German bomber, buried off the coast of Kent, England. The plane was shot down in 1940 during the Battle of Britain. In June 2013 it was successfully raised from the seabed. Wargaming.net has helped sponsor the restoration of the plane which will be ongoing through 2015. They have now announced the final resting place after restoration is completed.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dornier_17_3D_ExCC.gif

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dornier_Do_17Z.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dornier_Do_17_restoration_project.jpg

Wargaming and RAF Museum Announce Dornier 17 Final Resting Place

May 12, 2014 — Wargaming today announced the Dornier Do17 aircraft’s final resting place at the Royal Air Force Museum in Cosford, Shropshire, United Kingdom upon completion of the restoration in 2015.

In 2013, Wargaming and the Royal Air Force Museum set out to restore the only known surviving Dornier Do17 aircraft and provide visitors with the opportunity to view the renovation process and learn more about its history and role throughout World War II. The exhibit currently features restored pieces of the plane and upon completion next year, the Dornier Do17 aircraft will be featured alongside the Wargaming.net Interpretation Zone.

Additionally, to celebrate the opening of the Wargaming.net Interpretation Zone on Feb. 28, Wargaming and the RAF Museum launched a mobile application, Apparition, using augmented reality to view a virtual version of the aircraft flying over the museum. Users were encouraged to submit photos of the hundreds of virtual Do17’s from around the world, and the top 15 photos from Australia, UK, Ukraine, Philippines, Mexico and the USA were chosen to be on display at the exhibit.

“Offering people around the world to participate in each step of the Dornier Do17 renovation process has been a truly gratifying experience,” said Tracy Spaight, Special Projects Director at Wargaming. “As a company heavily invested in the preservation of military history, we feel it’s important to show our gratitude and appreciation towards these unique relics.“

For more information on the Wargaming.net Interpretation Zone, the Apparition application winners, and other news, visit:

Wgdo17.com – na
Wgdo17eu.com – eu
Wgdo17asia.com – asia

 

[Captain Murphy]

I have witnessed a couple of those aircraft restorations first hand. They almost end up making the plane from scratch before they are done. It is amazing.

 

[Thagarr]

I would love to see something like that, I am sure it is quite fascinating! The closest I have come is seeing them after they have already restored.

By the looks of that fuselage, I don't think they are going to have much of a choice but to have to rebuild it scratch.

 

[Captain Murphy]

I joined the EAA and have gone to a few of their fly-ins. Once in a while they have a restoration in progress. On the non-flying ones they even let volunteers help do things on them. I have always had a fascination with warplanes just because of the design of them. Made for a different time to different standards. If you left a Cessna on the bottom for 60 years you would find a couple of bolts and mounts, the rest would be gone.

 

[Thagarr]

I couldn’t agree more mate, a different time and a different standard indeed!

I have a couple of videos on my Youtube channel that I took last year at an airshow here in Illinois, in one you can see them attempting to tow a TBM avenger with a garden tractor, the same one they used on all the other planes in the show. They had to delay rolling out the TBM Avenger and the Skyraider sitting next to her until they could go get a real farm tractor to tow them!

The videos are pretty crappy, it was my first time with the camera!

 

[Captain Murphy]

Oh yeah, I went to Sun-n-Fun a couple years back and got to go down 'Warbird Row' and never realized that the Avenger was that large. It was sitting across from a P-51 and just dwarfed it.

Me in front of the Avenger.

My dad in front of the Mustang. We are the same height.

They had a whole row of massive birds. I will try to find some of the pics.

 

[Thagarr]

Great pics mate!

Yeah, that was the first time I had seen an Avenger up close as well, the thing is huge! Hard to believe they actually put that thing down on a wooden aircraft carrier deck, let alone launched and landed hundreds of those planes. Those old radial engines are just awesome, there is nothing quite like the sound, and feel, of one starting up!

I used to play a lot of flight simulators back in the 80's and 90's. F-15, F-16, F-19, Chuck Yeager's Flight Simulator, A-10 Warthog, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, but my favorite was the B-17 simulator. That is by far one of the best simulations ever. I seriously thought about getting a pilots license at one point, but math is really not my strong suit.

 

[Armada]

I heard about that Dornier a while back, fascinating stuff. They certainly have a massive job on their hands restoring it!

IMO nothing beats a Spitfire, except perhaps a Vulcan bomber...

My dad and I share a passion for aircraft and attend the RIAT each year. All kinds of aircraft from around the world turn up, old and new, which is awesome.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Look into the Sport Pilot License. It is for smaller planes and experimentals. Not as rigorous as a full license but still the same skill set.

I got to tour the inside of a B-17 a couple years back and sit in all the seats. That is a mighty cramped plane for the size of it. My grandfather was a nose gunner in B-24's and unfortunately theirs was down for engine repairs so we didn't get to see it. Though I did get to sit in a restored P-51B so it was still a good day.

 

[Thagarr]

The Spitfire is certainly a great airplane, those Merlin engines were a perfect fit for that airframe. The Hurricane's may have scored more kills during the Battle of Britain, but the Spitfire certainly was the deciding factor.

There was supposed to be a b-24 at that airshow giving rides, but it had to cancel because of engine trouble.

My favorite modern aircraft is the F-15, but my favorite all time though is the B-17. The amount of damage those planes could both dish out and take, and still bring crews home is just staggering.

http://398th.org/Images/Images_Aircraft_B-17/Aircraft/43-38172-3O-P_19441015_JBk.html

http://www.daveswarbirds.com/b-17/fuselag2.htm

 

[Grey Roger]

Re: Dornier: I've just watched the video, and it seems they are not planning to restore it. As has been said, restoring it to an intact state would involve replacing a lot of it, in which case what's the point? If you're going to build a replica, just build a replica. The aim of this project, on the other hand, is to preserve what was recovered (more than just that piece of fuselage, by the way). It won't be assembled into a rebuilt replica with a few original bits; the salvage is being cleaned up, will be given a preservative coating, then displayed as is.

Re: Spitfire vs. Hurricane: the Hurricane was the deciding factor in the Battle of Britain, with the Spitfire being the propaganda poster boy. One Messerschmitt Bf 109 was shot down, its pilot bailed out and was captured, and he landed on an RAF station. When questioned he was adamant that he had been shot down by a Spitfire. The RAF squadron commander told the German pilot that it was in fact a Hurricane which had shot down the Messerschmitt, specifically his Hurricane. However, the Hurricane was an old-style aircraft built with fabric over a frame, whereas the Spitfire was the RAF's newest aircraft and more suitable for future development. Including the beer-carrying version.

 

[Captain Murphy]

I knew a guy years ago that 'restored' a Stearman. He had found a partial fuselage frame at a junkyard and then proceeded to build or fabricate everything else that went with it. I can tell you that if you called it a 'replica' within earshot of him you would not want to do it twice. Almost all of the air worthy planes from that era are about 50-60% replaced with new fabricated components. It doesn't diminish their beauty to me, though. I think keeping something like that in the air is an artform.

I have always loved the simplicity of the Hurricane. They held those planes together with bailing wire and luck through years of fighting.

 

[Thagarr]

Grey Roger, it was not my intent to impune the dignity of the Hurricane. I agree they were great planes, very maneuverable, very stable gun platforms and could take a whopping amount of damage. The main reason they had more kills than the Spitfire's though is because there were a lot more Hurricanes flying at the time. They were no match for the speed of the 109's and a lot of their kills were slower moving easier to target German bombers. There were of course many other factors that were decisive for Britain, such as radar, public funding drives for new planes and many intelligence blunders of the Luftwaffe to name a few. Spitfires were a bit slower than the 109's, but more manoeuvrable and faster at higher altitudes.

Yeah, it is unfortunate that it is not a full restoration, I didn't know that when I read the press release. The Dornier 17 had a lot of aluminium in it, and that reacts differently to saltwater from what I understand, the frame just isn't capable of taking the full weight of the plane any more. As captain Murphy points out though, a lot of original material needs to be replaced when you restore a plane. Steel develops stress fractures over time and will fail eventually. Wood can lost longer if properly taken care of, but it to will need to be replaced at some point.

I had a chance to fly in that Stearman last year, I really wish I had taken the opportunity now. There will be no airshow at that airport this year because of runway construction, so it may be a while before I get the chance again.

 

[Grey Roger]

Hurricanes were supposed to go after bombers partly because they were slower and partly because they were more resilient and easier to repair. Attacking a bomber, they'd almost certainly get a few machine-gun holes, which were then easier to patch up in the Hurricane's fabric and frame construction. Of course, if a Hurricane found itself facing a Bf 109 which objected to it taking pot-shots at the bombers, or if a Spitfire found a bomber in front of it, that strategy might not be followed. Another decisive factor in the Battle was Goering's decision to stop bombing RAF airfields and start bombing London. The longer range to London meant the fighters couldn't provide escort for very long, and the RAF had a chance to recover because they weren't being bombed any more. Goering won the Battle of Britain, just not for his side.

The Spitfire Mk 1 and Bf 109E were so closely matched in performance that comparisons between the two are always good for a debate! But the cannon in the Bf 109E's wing required big bulges to accomodate them, which didn't do the wings' aerodynamics any good and Willi Messerschmitt didn't like that at all. No later version had guns fixed inside the wing (though they did sometimes carry external gun pods for extra firepower against Allied bombers). Instead the Daimler Benz DB 605 engine had a space inside for a fast-firing cannon.

Post-war, Czechoslovakia tried to build a copy of the Bf 109G, the Avia S-199. They couldn't get the DB 605 engine, so they used the Junkers Jumo 211 instead. This was really designed for bombers, being fitted into the likes of the Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 87, and did not give the S-199 very good performance. Worse, it had no inside space for a cannon, so the only way to give the S-199 decent armament was with external gun pods, reducing performance further. Worse, the secondary armament of a Bf 109 was a couple of machine-guns sitting on top of the engine and firing through the propellor, which only works if they're synchronised to fire when there isn't a propellor blade in front of them. The mechanism didn't work very well with the Jumo 211...

Spain also made a copy of the Bf 109G, the Ha-1112. They also couldn't get the DB 605 so they tried various substitutes and ended up with the Merlin - yes, the same engine which had powered the original Bf 109's enemies. They had the advantage of the Hispano-Suiza cannon, which was slim enough to fit inside the wing without needing big bulges. If you've ever seen the film "The Battle of Britain", the Bf 109's in that are actually Spanish Ha-1112's. The Heinkel He 111's are also Spanish copies. Here's a Ha-1112 which I saw during an air display last year - this one had been in the film and has been repainted with its film markings, though it now has the rounded wingtips similar to the Bf 109G rather than the clipped wingtips of the Bf 109E as in the film.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I was a flyboy in the 1990s playing the Microsoft Combat flight Simulators and then later the IL2 series. Still have that one installed.

I also have a book written by General Adolph Galland. He got his start flying a biplane in Spain in 1939 and finished in 1945 flying a jet and achieved 104 or so kills, all on the Western Front.

He said that it was Goering who lost the Battle of Britain. He also was of the opinion that the 109 had a better rate of climb and was faster than the Spitfire. This was reflected in their tactics where the British tried to engage in dogfights and the Germans came at them with the throttles pushed to the stops and eyes bulging.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Considering we are on the flying discussion right now:
I am currently building 2 'laser tag' type units for a group at the local EAA chapter that do dogfights in aerobatic ultralights (Hurricanes and such). They are based on MILES IR tech and have a range of around 800m using the laser emitters. In exchange, I get all sorts of free flying time with the 4 instructors that are members there! Once the units are built and operational I will post some pics and vids.

 

[Thagarr]

Thanks for the info Grey Roger, fascinating stuff!

That sounds like a whole lot of fun Captain Murphy! That should be some really fascinating video, really looking forward to seeing that mate!

 

[Thagarr]

Sole surviving Hurricane from the Battle of Britain could end up in America.

 

[Armada]

Interesting. Personally I wouldn't mind so much, as the RAF still flies two Hurricanes as part of its Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which I see at least a couple of times a year.

 

[Thagarr]

I am more surprised that there is still one capable of flying that was part of the Battle of Britain, that was 74 years ago! I hope I am still able to fly after 74 years ...lol