• 
• 
• 

• 

Claudius Dornier developed the Do P 59-04 fast bomber project (followed by diagrams of 05 and 06) which roughly took up the design described in the patent: the pilot was naturally housed between the two engines and, for obvious centering reasons, the second engine was halfway down the fuselage, driving the pusher propeller via a shaft. The tail wheel, located in the lower fin of the cruciform tailplane, was replaced by a faired skid. The engines and armament were not yet defined. The main wing was given a variable incidence of 20° compared to the initial patent, and the landing gear became retractable. The total length of the aircraft was 11.36 m for a wingspan of 11.00 m. It is probably this project that is the subject of a new patent, this time only in Germany, on August 3, 1937 under the number 728044 and which, secret, will not be published until November 11, 1942. The military destination of the machine is not in doubt because "the central part must be covered with a second coating to protect it from projectiles". It was not until 1940 that projects P 59-01 to P 59-05 were born, which finalized the formula, each distinguished from the others by the nature of its missions, either from pure experimentation to fast bomber (P 59-05), the latter being planned with two Daimler-Benz DB 605 E engines, then in gestation. Events thwarted Domier's plans, because, intoxicated by the victories in the West, of the Wehrmacht as a whole and of the Luftwaffe in particular, the heads of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Air Ministry, RLM for short) and those of the Technical Bureau made it clear to Claudius Dornier that there was "no need for a revolutionary aircraft, what exists having largely satisfied what was requested". Thus, the head of the Luftwaffe, Herman Goring, rapporteur of the Four-Year Plan of 3 February 1940, wrote to the Minister of the Economy as follows: "Projects that will produce results in 1940, or even in the spring of 1941, must be encouraged by all means. All other programs that will only come to fruition later, unless the Economy justifies them, must be put on hold in favor of previous projects." It is then clear to Claudius Dornier that his project is postponed indefinitely!