Messerschmitt - Post War Gliders
At the end of the Great War, Messerschmitt was able to begin his studies in November 1918, at the Technical University of Munich. This meant that he now had the time available for again resuming his work on the gliders.
Although Germany had made great progress with powered aricraft before and during the Great War, the country was forbidden such aircraft by the Treaty of Versailles, and for some years after the War gliders became the focus of German efforts. So important was aviation and gliding to the rebuilding of the German empire, the German government choose to subsidize and sponsor glider research, training, and development almost immediately after the end of the War, despite the crippling economic sanctions imposed by the Versailles Treaty. After the glider S 7 was built and tested in 1919, in 1920 the exceptional S 8 was developed. In the following year, Messerschmitt alone built the tailless S 9, which deviated so much from the previous and jointly produced types that he was unable to test it sufficiently for the Rhoen competition in 1921.
Harth and Messerschmitt decided to use the old S 8 of the previous year to attempt to beat the flight duration record of Klemperor of 15 minutes and 40 seconds achieved at the Rhoen competition. This was successful - on September 13, 1921, Harth flew a long duration of 21 and 1/2 minutes, which however, ended in a crash where Harth was severely injured. Because of this world record, Willy Messerschmitt first became known to the world as an aircraft constructor to the general public.
The S 8, just like all of the other gliders of Harth and Messerschmitt incorporated "wing control." In other words, angle of attack changes were brought about by tipping the wing around a point of rotation around the fuselage, which then affected the altitude control. By twisting the rib structure of the wing tips around the rounded outer spar, transverse control was achieved. The basic idea was to exploit short time wind fluctuations, that is gusts, using the adaptable wing.
In the following year Messerschmitt was alone because Harth dropped out. He built a factory at Bischofsheim/Rhon and had paid workers where he built the wing-control training glider S 10 in several versions. He also found the time, in addition to his studies at Munich, to operate a flight school on the Wasserkuppe. He was able to win a number of gliding flight prizes because of this effort, which his students won with the S 10 during the Rhoen competition in 1922.
However, Messerschmitt was not satisfied with the successes. He wanted to have a wing control, high performance glider. Even though he had failures with the next constructions S 11 through S 13, heobtained new knowledge which then led to the construction of his lastwing control glider aircraft S 14. Hackmach won the valuable altitude prize during the Rhoen 1923 competition using the S 14 with a tape-off point elevation of 303 meters. Messerschmitt obtained the construction prize for his very successful aircraft. However, he was not only successful with this aircraft during the Rhoen competition.
He obtained his scientific training at the mechanical engineering department and electrical department ofthe Munich Institute of Technology, where he obtained his diploma at the end of 1923. At that time there were no theses, but instead, the students had to accomplish certain tasks in the various disciplines, which was not popular with all students. For many reasons, the speciality "lifting devices" was not popular. The young Messerschmitt constructed his new S 14 next to his studies. He said to himself the aircraft was a type of lifting device as we11, and he attempted to design a glider instead of a crane. Of course, this was strongly rejected.
Fortunately, there was a Professor Finsterwalder on his committee who was the professor for photogrammetry, and his father was an enthusiastic gliding proponent and, therefore, had come into contact with aviation. There was also Professor L.Foppl, ordinary professor for mechanics, who both assured that the design was recognized. This meant that the engineering candidate, Messerschmitt, did not waste his time in constructing the S 14.
Today when there have been departments of aircraft technology for many years and only a diploma in addition to the course work is required in a subject which is selected by the candidate, Messerschmitt would have had it much easier as an aircraftdesigner. Nevertheless, his contribution to conventional mechanical engineering was noticed at the time.
The now twenty-five-year-old diploma engineer was now able to completely devote his time to aircraft design and it became a business. With his successes he was able to attract the attention of the international scientific community.
In the same year 1923, he founded his own firm, "Messerschmitt Bamberg Aircraft Construction Company." The Unterfranken Wurzburg Works Association and the Aviation Training School Furth were his first customers. This represented the first step toward commercial aviation construction. Only the construction prize of the S 14 was available to him as resources. His brother, Ferdinand, at the beginning supported him sporadically with income from the family earnings. He also made space available to him at the direction of his parents.
Here the first motor-driven glider S 15 was produced, a wing controlled, high wing aircraft with a 500cm3 Victoria motor. It was now possible to lift the end of the fuselage from the ground during roll experiments. This meant that at least for this reason, the principle of wing control had to be dropped. After installingan elevator and a stronger Douglas motor with a stroke volume of 700cm3, the pilot Seywald was able to fly up to an altitude of 600 meters in June 1924. These flights lasted three-quarters of an hour.
For the first time in 1924, during the Rhoen competition there was a special division for motor-driven gliders. For this purpose, Messerschmitt built two additional motor-driven gliders in the new facilities of his firm, the old Murmann Brewery in Jakobsberg in Bamberg. These were the single-seat S 16A and two-seat S 16B. These were again high wing aircraft with high aspect ratio wings, again equipped with the 700cm3 Douglas motor. The twin-seat aircraft had a somewhat larger span, the "wing control" was dropped finally in favor of a normal control method. Both aircraft were successful during the technical performance tests of the Rhoen competition, but then had bad luck during the overland flights.
Nevertheless, Messerschmitt was now moving along and one would have to reckon with him in the future. Both of his aircraft had won recognition and for himself he had obtained important information for his research in motorized aircraft design. He learned that he had to give the same attention to the engine and the way it was installed as the attention given to the airframe.
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