I had asked about some information on the HS forum for the Do335 a few days ago that no one was able to provide. Well, I happened upon this site: http://www.do335.de.vu/
Almost exactly what I want! My only complaint is that the resolution isn’t high enough to read the legend. Even though I don’t know german, if I could read it, I’m sure I could figure it out.
I also noted that the author of the site stated, “All this datas on this side based on the orginal manual of the do335 and the book:
“Dornier Do 335 Mehrzweckjagdflugzeug””
I have emailed him inquiring about this manual as well as the possibility of obtaining better quality images of the schematics.
Just thought I’d share this info.
UPDATE: I got a reponse. He’s not able to give better scans, but he did provide the book info:
Karl-Heinz Regnat
Dornier Do335 Mehrzweck Jagdflugzeug
ISBN: 3-925505-59-8
Motorbuchverlag Deutschland
From what I can find, it’s not avaliable in the US. If I was to buy it from abroad, I’m sure it would be sky high in price.
The DO335 was one of the first, if not the first, aircraft with an ejection seat. The lower virtical stabilizer could be “ejected” in case of the need to make a wheels up landing. It had exploding bolts for this purpose. The NASM DO 335 was captured and brought to the USA for evaluation at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton Ohio. After the end of the 2nd World War the DO 335 was boxed up and sent to a storage facility in Maryland (Rockville I think).
As an aside the American intelligence services had standing orders to capture and send back to the USA a copy of every variant of aircraft used by the enemy during the war. This is true of the ETO and the PTO. Many of the evaluation aircraft are in storage at either Wright Paterson or Rockvill Maryland. There may still be some in California also.
In the early 1980s the DO335 was sent to Germany to the Dornier factory where it was restored by the Dornier aircraft workers, some of whom worked on the original aircraft. The ejection seat charges were still “live”, as were the exploding bolts in the lower vertical stabilizer! The restored DO335 was on loan and on display in Germany for many years and was relatively recently returned to the USA and put on display in the NASM.
At the end of the war Germanys war machines were totally destroyed. The few remaining machines were the ones taken by the allies for evaluation and the few that had been exported to other countries, like the BF 109s that went to Spain (or were they manufactured under license?)
I think I read somewhere that the DO335 was the fastest propeller driven aircraft of the war, bar none.
Anyways thanks for sharing the detailed info and good web sites. I am looking forward to doing my Tamyia DO335 sometime next year. This would be a good time to start accumulating the research. Thanks.
I’ve also got 2 335s on my to do list, one a Tamiya a-1 and the other a Revell 2-seater. I’ve bought all the resin bits for the Tamiya kit, and will probably scratch build the bits I need for the Revell kit. Shame I didn’t know at the time that Tamiya do a 2-seater. [:(] ah well, we live & learn.
There’s plenty of free reference material out there if you know where to look. Just a google of Dornier 335 will net you loads of stuff.
And if you fancy a really different colour scheme. Did you know that the French operated a couple of 335’s for research, post war? A two part article, with pictures, can be found in Aeroplane Monthly (aeroplanemonthly.com) March & April 2002. I’m sure back issues are available.
All the best
Pete
I’m bringing this subject back to the top. It seems I recall someone telling me that the book I listed at the start of this thread also had an english printing. Can anyone verify this?
Thanks.