Fritzsche/Farman mystery.

[richard B]

Bonjour à tous .

In Jane's 1913,historical section ,this plane is depicted as a Farman sold to an german officer

.

This very same picture can be found in german generaly well documented books depicted as the by Fritzsche designed and built by Rumpler tandem triplane .
p 167 of P. Supf "deutschen Fluggeschichte ":
A pic.of the uncovered tandem triplane in Rumpler factory in 1909.

In W.Schwipps "Schwerer als Luft" p.133 we can read :
"Free translation"
"The first landplane equiped with floats for the Deutsche Marine was the 1908 Oberleutnant z.See Fritzsche's tandem triplane ,for the Kieler Flugtag ,june 1908.
Fritzsche was killed in an car accident before .
Marine Ing. Carl Loew moved it to Rumpler where it was modified ,and got l the Marine No E 1 ."

In G. Schmitt "Als die Oldtimer flogen "

" Oberleutnant zur See Fritzsche let built the tandem triplane he had designed by Rumpler .
After his death ,his brother gave the plane to Carl Loew ,but it never was able to fly . "

In B.Lange " Typenhandbuch der deutschen Luftfahrttechnik "

"Fritsche designed a tandem monoplane built at Kieler Maschinenfabrik
Mordhorst.After Fritzsche's death it was several times modified by Rumpler .At the end ,it was Taube-like ,and flew in 1911 ,piloted by C. Loew
Loew gave it to the Marine ,where it got the No E 1"

There is a picture in "Luftfahrt international N.7 (1975) showing a Taube depicted as "Marine-Oberingenieur C.Loew on the Fritzsche-Rumpler monoplane.

My query : WHERE IS THE TRUTH ?

Thanks for any help

Cheers

Richard

[YavorD]

Flugsport, Jahrgang I., 15. Oktober 1909, No.22, Seite 635

Flieger Fritzsche. Dieser Flieger, dessen Bau von dem bekannten Oberleutnant zur See, Fritzsche, welcher seinerzeit im Automobil verunglückte, begonnen wurde, ist von Marine-Oberingenieur Löw fertiggestellt worden. Der Flieger ist ein Eindecker mit drei hintereinander liegenden Flächen, wovon die vordere als Höhensteuer dient. Zum Betriebe dient ein 50 PS Motor. Die Gesamttragfläche der Maschine beträgt 35 qm.

Fritzsche’s aeroplane. This aeroplane, whose building was started by the well-known Oberleutnant zur See Fritzsche which crashed at the time in a car is been completed by Marine-Oberingenieur Löw. The aeroplane is a monoplane (sic!) with three consecutive underlying surfaces which the front serves as an elevator. The power is supplied by a 50 hp engine. The overall lifting surface of the machine is 35 sq.m.

Hi, Richard!
Just to add another secondary source to your collection.
Regards,
Yavor

[richard B]

Thanks Yavor :the Jane's seems to be wrong ...The Fritzsche was not the Farman....

Since ,I have found in W.Hackenberger "Die alten Adler" :
"In 1913 Marineingenieur Karl Loew put an old Rumpler Taube on floats "

So ,the E 1 could be the much modified "Taube like" Fritzsche fitted with floats by C.Loew.

[Varese2002]

The story of Fritzsche was extensively documented by Peter M. Grosz in an article in an issue of the US magazine WW1 Aero The journal of early aviation. I will track it down for you and give a summery.

Cheers

Kees

[richard B]

Bonjour à tous ,et merci Varese.

Reading myself ,I remember there was a Farman tandem triplane ,never finished ,built in 1908 :The Farman Flying Fish.




I think that it is the origin of Jane's error .

Remains now the story of the Fritzsche tandem before and after its designer death ...

It seems that Lange+Hackenberger could be right ....

[Varese2002]

Richard, I found the article of Peter M. Grosz in WW1 Aero No. 172 (May 2001) pp. 27-31, titled 'Otto Fritzsche and the first aircraft of the German Navy'.

Oberleutnant zur See Otto Fritzsche (1882-1908) started with the design of a flying machine in 1906 when he had enough cash in hand after the death of his father. The machine was the 3-winged tractor plane seen in Jane's for instance, this is the best known picture of the Fritzsche 3-wing machine.

The machine was designed aling his lines by Ing. Mordhost in Kiel who was also the owner of a machine factory. The engine was also designed and built by Mordhost, but was a failure. The idea was to make an 'all-German' machine.

The famous picture shows the machine without engine and with a mock-up four-bladed propeller.

Otto Fritzsche was killed in a motor incident on June 4, 1908 leaving his then unfinished project unattended. But the project was taken over by the brother of Otto, Karl Fritzsche who assigned the design responsability to Marine-Ober-Ingenieur Karl Loew (who was already involved from the beginning).

The unfinished Fritzsche 3-wing machine was exhibited on the Sportfest of the Kieler Verkehrsverein in July 1908. No pictures are shown of this event, but they may exist somewhere in reports (newspapers) on the event.

In 1908 Loew was transferred to a sea command, bringing progress on the building of the Fritzsche machine to a grinding halt. Work was resumed in late 1909 when Loew brought the Fritzsche machine to the (then starting) Rumpler factory in Berlin for completion. [There is a hazy picture of the machine in the Rumpler factory with Diplom-Ingenieur Rösner].

The original Fritzsche machine was completed and assembled by Rumpler with Rösner in attendence. A 50 hp Rumpler Aeolus V-8 engine was fitted. The machine made quite a stir at Rumpler as they had only seen the structural details of Wright, Voisin etc. on pictures. Now they could see an aeroplane in the flesh.

It appears that Loew was given leave to test the machine on Johannisthal in mid-1910, but flight was not succesfull (undercarriage failure, engine problems etc.). Loew was injured and the machine never flew again.

New effort was to get rid of the three-wing tandem configuration. In the end Loew re-used parts of the Fritzsche three-wing machine for building a 'normal' Taube, which was named the Fritzsche Taube, still in honour of the original instigator of it all Otto Fritzsche.

That socalled Fritzsche Taube was later fitted with floats, becoming Eindecker 1 (E 1) in the naval inventory.

As I see it the different sources have all somewhat from the cake but not the whole story.

There is no documented relation with the three-wing tandem Farman design (built by Voisin, but never finished). The machine looks superfically the same, but in details there are all sort of differences.

Cheers

Kees

[richard B]

Thank you for the Info : All the story shows how difficult it is to write about this period .

From Peter M Grosz ,I have only its" German Giants" perhaps the best Aviation Book I ever read .

Cheers

Richard

[Varese2002]

Peter M. Grosz had the gift that he could write down complex history in a very readable manner. As he combined this with his systematic research method and German knowledge (his roots were in Germany) it makes that all of the PMG writings happen to be interesting and readable.

He has written an amazing volume of books and magazine articles in about 40 years. His whole collection (books, pictures, handwritings) is now in the Deutsches Technik Museum in Berlin. It might be interesting to have a look. Their (book) catalog can be found here. AFAIK the pictures cannot be consulted in a digital form via internet, at this time. But it may come, one never knows.

Cheers

Kees

[richard B]

I was this summer at the Technik Museum ,Berlin ,Museum and then 2 h in the Bibliothek .
But I had not time enough to look at the archiv : Searching in the archiv request many hours /days ...
But ,if I go back there ,I'll certainly have some days searching the GROSZ collection

Thanks for the link :it will be very usefull to our Berliner Friends .

Cheers

Richard

[Faustroll]

As a footnote to this interesting thread, although the Flying Fish was a design that Farman always claimed as his own, it was in fact patented by Gabriel Voisin (soon after the closed circuit kilometre in January 1908).

Construction began at the Voisin works in rue de la Ferme before moving to the new factory on the Quai du Point du Jour; the large 'banana' fuselage (one of a series of six) was probably recycled into one of the canard prototypes.