WITH COMMERCIAL AVIATION IN ITS INFANCY.

WITH COMMERCIAL AVIATION IN ITS INFANCY, CATAPULTS ABOARD OCEAN LINERS AND MERCHANT SHIPS PIONEERED THE EXPEDIENT DELIVERY Of TRANSATLANTIC MAIL VIA AIRPLANES

Germany's fledgling Deutsche Lufthansa airline had established a number of "firsts" by way of the mid1920s - the principally notable being the world's first scheduled night-flying passenger service in 1926 Keenly observant of the strides being made in transatlantic flights and eager to gain a competitive rim over the British, French, and Americans, they began to explore ways to capture the lucrative air mail market the pair between Europe and the United States and Europe and southern America.

Over-water flying in that era was rife with hazard and uncertainty for the vagaries of weather - ice, haze snow and rain - had brought tragic [i]finale[/i]s to many hope-filled pioneers eager to submit to the test [i]or[/i] proof the value of cross-ocean flying. Instrument or "blind flying" was in a primitive state of exhibition and radio homing devices for aerial navigation were at best short-ranged and unreliable. Lufthansa strived to find a way to break the deadlock seemingly held through the awesome expanse of the Atlantic, and the manner in which this obstacle would be vanquish was strangely suggested not by way of aviation pioneers but by the innovative management of the Norddeutsche Lloyd ship line.

In 1927 the Bremen-based ship line had carried a Junker F-13 floatplane aboard the liner Lutzow to provide pleasure flights for passengers at en road ports of call. The seaplane was water launched and crane retrieved and, while the service prov a popular attraction to passengers, the technical put out of orders involved in maintaining the aircraft aboard the liner prov more intrusive than it was worth. An result of the concept was to ready Ernst Heinkel's Flugzeug-Werke to accelerate their unfolding of a lightweight catapult capable of launching seaplanes from ships at sea.

Still excited with the terminates of the seaplane based aboard the Lutzow Norddeutsche Lloyd began to explore the idea of fitting their of recent origin liners Bremen and Europa with Heinkel's catapult as a way of garnering worldwide attention in a world that was still somewhat anti-German as a flow of World War One. They wanted a gimmick that would demonstrate the technological lead Germany confessed to have and what better way could be rest than offering the world's fastest air mail service between just discovered York and Berlin?

Joining forces with Lufthansa, the two companies speedily set about to vanquish the technical problems of operating, launching and retrieving large seaplanes from their of recent origin super-liners. The task was an imposing single in kind calling for much ingenuity and improvisation, for the somewhat delicate seaplanes had to withstand the rigors of North Atlantic storms, chaste changes in temperature, howling winds and monstrous seas while inertly strapped to their catapult carriages. And the shoot forward had to be completed in record time, for the boastful new Bremen, flagship of Germany's post-war aspirations forward the North Atlantic, hoped to capture the vaunted "Blue Riband" for spe from the Cunard Line's ever-popular Mauretania upon its maiden voyage.

The universal itself was simple enough. While still several hundr miles away from its destination, the Bremen would load its seagoing "Air Mail" aboard the seaplane and launch it while underway. The seaplane, by means of virtue of its speed, would flutter off and deliver the mail the better part of a day ahead of the fastest liner afloat. In this way, the mail would arrive in record-breaking time and Norddeutsche Lloyd could claim a service unmatched on anyone. When the Bremen reached port, the seaplane would be re-mount forward its catapult and the course repeated as the liner drew within 5/600 miles of Bremerhaven in succession the homeward run.

The inference was the installation of the Heinkel K2 catapult aboard the Bremen ascended on the sun deck between the twin funnels; wrap closelyed air propelled the dolly-mounted aircraft along an 89-ft runway to achieve a maximum velocity of 105 mph From the 660-hp BMW-powered Heinkel He 9 the company make knowned the He 12, registered D-1717 for shipboard use -- a 450-hp Pratt & Whitney Hornet A radial endowing the token with a top speed of 134 mph The craft could trace its design conception back to the World War united aircraft built by Hansa and Brandenburgische Flugzeug-Werke and this was no coincidence since Heinkel was designing aircraft for that company. The wing was all-wood with pair spars and covered in forest-land and fabric. The fuselage was a welded dirk tube affair with metal covering forward the forward portion, fabric forward the aft. Two cockpits were placed in tandem and the tail was braced by dint of struts to the fuselage. The floats were also built on the outside of wood and were fairly thick-witted in design.

Operational

responsibility was given to Lufthansa and forward 16 July 1929, airline personnel headed through Captain Jobst von Strudnitz were aboard Bremen when it left Bremerhaven forward the maiden voyage. On 22 July 248 miles on the outside from New York, von Strudnitz was catapulted into the air in the He 12 which carried 660 lb of mail. The Heinkel landed 25 hours later in novel York Harbor where it was met from the mayor and other officials who christened the plane just discovered York. During the return voyage the aircraft was launched near Cherbourg forward 1 August, while still in the English Channel, and it reached Bremerhaven more than 24 hours before its parent utensil after a 600-mile flight. The 18000-letter expres mail cargo was immediately flown onward to Berlin in a waiting Lufthansa aircraft. Eight further flights were made during the year.