Evening All,
Serious aviation modellers know that the only real aircraft are pushers so when I came across the Oertz W6 Flugschoner (Flying Schoner), courtesy Marklo in a GB on Britmodeller I had to thank him for the introduction. The Oertz W6 was a double biplane with two pusher engines, so it must rank as a very real aeroplane indeed! The only problem with Mark's model was that it was in the wrong scale (1/48), so someone had to correct the error and as nobody else came forward I thought that I would have a try for a recent Flying Boats GB on another site. This model is in God's Own Scale and has a wingspan of approximately 12 inches (30 cm). This is a real steampunkt type of aeroplane and I was therefore immediately attracted by it.
Dr.Ing. Max Oertz studied nautical design at the Royal Institute of Technology, Charlottenburg, Berlin and worked in Helsinki and St Petersburg before returning to Germany in 1895. He built the first yacht in aluminium for a banker and founded a company to build more yachts, including one for the Kaiser. Oertz was interested in aviation and designed a gondola which could be lowered from Zeppelins and allow the Zeppelin to remain unseen above the clouds while the observer could be beneath the clouds and have a good all round view.
In 1909 he built his first aeroplane, and in 1911 a second one. He then combined his skill in designing yachts with his interest in aircraft to start building flying boats. Two machines were built before 1914 and more were built for the German Navy during the war. In 1917 he sold his aviation interests to Hansa-Brandenburg: post war he continued designing ships and other marine craft. He died in 1927.
Oertz submitted a number of flying boat designs to the German Navy in 1914, of which the W6 was one. It was known as the Flugschoner, (Flying Schooner), and was ordered in August 1914. It was distinguished by its tandem biplane wing design which was chosen to provide a large wing area within a reasonable span to increase the range. It had a crew of three and was powered by 2 x 260 hp Maybach Mb. IV engines mounted in the hull driving pusher propellors via shafts with bevel gears.
Although construction was completed in the summer of 1916 delays in the supply of the engines meant that the machine was not sent to the navy until July 1917. When it was delivered for trials it did not have wing tip floats, and ailerons on the upper front wings only. Trials showed that floats were advisable in the choppy waters of the North Sea and that the aileron control was inadequate, so a second pair were mounted between the rear wings. The hull had a very broad beam which made the craft stable in the water, and the tail surfaces were mounted on booms high above the hull. The aircraft took off and landed well but overall performance was sluggish, even though the range was greater than had been calculated. It was not considered worth while proceeding with the design as it would have proved vulnerable to fighter attack and so the machine was dismantled after the tests had been completed.
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Sadly there is no kit of this aircraft so I had to cobble it together from wood, plastic sheet, strip and rod, and brass rod. It is rigged with rolled copper wire and the markings are from Arctic Decals. There is a build log in the scratch builds section of this site.
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.
