Model Forum / General / Models / March 2008

on 3/29/2008 6:20 AM The Old Man said the following:

or "Don Winslow of the Navy"

From the Bowers and McDowell book, "Triplanes":

Mannesmann (Poll) Triplane

This giant triplane seems to have been a dying gasp of the
German Air Force. It was meant to carry leaflets across
the Atlantic Ocean to drop on New York City. While the
designer's name seems to be a bit of a mystery, it is believed
that it was the work of Villehad Forssman who had worked
previously for Siemens-Schuckert. The unfinished aircraft
was discovered in a hanger after the Armistance by the
Allied Control Commissions inspection team.

A section of the plane and a wheel 8 feet in diameter where
sent back to England for study. The span of the center wing
was 165 ft (50.3 m); the top and bottom wing were of equal
span but quite a bit smaller. It was to have tandem mounted
engines - eight on the center wing and a pair on the lower
wing. The fuselage was long and slender, mounted between the
center wing directly above the engines on the lower wing.
The fuselage was 150 ft (45.7 m) long.

An eighty-hour flight endurance was planned (editorial
comment: Wow!), and provision was made to carry such a load
of fuel. The overall structure was heavy but extremely
weak. No interal bracing cable was installed, and while it
was covered with two layers of three-ply wood which made it
as heavy as a boat, these did little to add strength. In
addition, the ailerons were too small, the center of gravity
way aft, and the elevators would have been ineffective. So,
it is doubtful it would have flown if it had been completed.

That's all they wrote:

Cheers,

In his book "GIANTS Of The Sky" Bill Gunston seems to think it was a
real project, and that it was well-advanced in construction at the end
of the war.
The surviving wheel is stored in The Imperial War Museum... it has a
diameter of 93.5 ". The aircraft's main gear consisted of two-dual wheel
units.
The real mystery planes from the war were the Adlershof Giants... plans
for immense aircraft were found among data from the Zeppelin Company
that was taken to Wright Field after the war.
The biggest of these would make the Poll aircraft look puny... twenty
500 hp engines drive ten propellers (six ahead of the wing and four
pushers) on a twin-fuselaged aircraft boasting a _479'_ wingspan, with
each of the two fuselages being 290' 8" long.
Gunston thinks the design may have actually have been doable, although
the landing gear units were 161 across from outer end to outer end,
making a airfield capable of handling it pretty hard to come by. ;-)

Pat