German Dornier Do 335 "Pfeil" Aircraft

During World War I, in 1915-16, Claude Dornier built pairs of 240-HP Maybach motors into his second giant flying boat, the Rs II. in tandem arrangement, and did the same in the designs that followed, the Rs III and Rs IV. After 1918 there then appeared his famous "Wal" (Whale) flying boats and the designs that followed them, in which this motor arrangement was always used success­fully. In 1936 the Do 18 flying boat appeared, in which for the first time the rear motor of the tandem pair was driven by an extension of the crankshaft. This gave him the idea that one could also locate the pilot between the two powerplants. This led to Patent No. 728044 (Class 62b, Group 303) of August 3, 1937, on the basis of which Dornier developed the P.59-04 high-speed bomber. In the war situation prevailing in 1940, though, the Technical Office of the Air Ministry (GL-C) saw no need to develop such a revolutionary design, and as Goring, responsible for the Four-Year Plan, wrote to Air Minister Funk on February 3, 1940: "By all means, the plans must be furthered that will come into being in 1940 or by the spring of 1941. All other programs, which would come to fruition later, must, if they require economic outlays, be postponed in favor of the aforementioned plans."....

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