• 
• 
• 

• 

Work on the Dornier P 85 floatplane project began in January 1938. At this time, the management of the Dornier company turned to the Technical Office (Technisches Amt) of the Reich Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium - RLM) with a proposal to continue further development of the Do 17 twin-engine bomber line and develop a more advanced and versatile Do 217 combat aircraft.

The RLM Technical Directorate agreed with the company's proposal, but at the same time pointed out that attention should be paid to the development of a naval bomber and torpedo bomber, which received the designation "Naval Dive Combat Aircraft" or See-Sturzkampfflugzeug (See-Stuka). The ability to attack ground targets in a dive was given the closest attention by the RLM management.

The reason for the RLM leadership's predilection for dive bombing was the tests, during which German bombers of the main types (He 111, Do 17 and Ju 87) attacked a target ship in the North Sea with training concrete bombs - the decommissioned battleship Zähringen (Wittelsbach type) - which, with a minimum of the crew, sheltered behind thick armor, was located in a pre-selected zone.

Tests showed that classical bombers, which drop 50-kilogram concrete bombs in horizontal flight from different altitudes, achieve a hit probability of only 2%, while Ju 87s, attacking the Zähringen in a dive, had 50% hits. However, the "stukas" were not very suitable for such tasks, as they had insufficient carrying capacity and flight range. In addition, this aircraft depended on land airfields.

The Dornier P 85 project was supposed to correct these two shortcomings. The P 85 project was based on the Do 217 bomber, which, instead of a retractable wheeled landing gear, was supposed to receive a pair of fixed all-metal floats with a track of 5.8 meters. The machine also received an intra-fuselage compartment designed to accommodate one torpedo, a special armor-piercing bomb or a bomb load with a total weight of 1500 kg.

The nose of the fuselage was to accommodate two fixed 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns with 500 rounds of ammunition per barrel and two 20 mm Solothurn S18-350/MG-204 cannons with 200 rounds of ammunition per barrel. As a defensive armament, it was planned to install two mobile 7.92 mm MG 15 machine guns, located behind the cockpit in shooting positions in the upper and lower parts of the fuselage.

To the lower surface of the wing of the P 85 project, behind the engine nacelles, rail aerodynamic brakes were to be attached, which would be released during a dive and slow down the aircraft. Otherwise, the airframe of the P 85 project was supposed to correspond to the airframe of the Do 217 bomber.

As in the case of the land bomber, two types of 12-cylinder in-line liquid-cooled engines were offered as the power plant of the float seaplane project: the Daimler-Benz DB 601G (1300 hp/956 kW) or the Junkers Jumo 211 of approximately equal power. Later, a variant was proposed in the form of 14-cylinder radial air-cooled BMW 801 engines with an output of 1600 hp (1176 kW).
The floats developed by Dornier were to be placed under the engine nacelles and attached to the racks. With their other extremities, the struts were attached to the nacelles and fuselage. The floats were supposed to have a volume of 8100 liters and it was planned to place a fuel tank with a capacity of 550 liters inside each and from them.

According to calculations, the P 85 project was supposed to have the following flight characteristics: a maximum speed at an altitude of 4000 meters - 370 km / h, a cruising speed at the same altitude - 270 km / h, a cruising range of 2800 kilometers. The aircraft was supposed to have a wingspan of 19 meters, a length of 16.40 meters and a height of 5.33 meters. The maximum take-off weight was supposed to be 10 tons.

Dornier developed detailed documentation for the aircraft, but the issue of the tail unit remained unclear: the old version was two-fin like the Do 217, while the later version was single-fin with an added ventral part.
In May of 1938, the P 85 project was approved, and the future of the Do 217W, as the RLM technical directorate gave it, seemed clear. A full-scale mock-up of the aircraft was ordered and an order was issued to prepare for the production of prototypes (the first flight was scheduled for January 1940). According to RLM plans, the first production Do 217W was to be handed over to the troops in early 1941.

However, at the end of 1938, the plans of the RLM management changed and it was considered that four-engine land-based aircraft with a longer range and carrying capacity (the future Focke-Wulf Fw 200) were more suitable for operations on the high seas. In October 1938, the P 85/Do 217W project and other work on the creation of an aircraft in the category of "heavy naval "stuff" were canceled by the RLM technical directorate. Production of the Do 217W V1 and V2 prototypes was discontinued; Usable parts were used in production, and unusable parts were sent to scrap metal.

In conclusion, the Imperial Navy showed interest in the project, and the Japanese naval attaché diligently informed the fleet command about the progress of work on the P 85. The command of the Japanese fleet wanted to acquire a license for a seaplane and in addition to it a prototype. However, since prototypes of the Do 217W were not manufactured, the deal with the Japanese fleet did not take place, and the float Dornier was not delivered to the Pacific Ocean.

•