The Dornier Do 17 is a twin-engined light bomber produced by Dornier Flugzeugwerke for the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Designed in the early 1930s as a Schnellbomber ("fast bomber") intended to be fast enough to outrun opposing aircraft, the lightly built craft had a twin tail and "shoulder wing". Sometimes referred to as the Fliegender Bleistift ("flying pencil") or the Eversharp[4] it was popular among its crews due to its handling, especially at low altitude, which made the Do 17 harder to hit than other German bombers.
The Do 17 made its combat debut in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, operating in the Condor Legion in various roles. Along with the Heinkel He 111 it was the main bomber type of the German air arm in 1939–1940. The Dornier was used throughout the early war, and saw action in significant numbers in every major campaign theatre as a front line aircraft until the end of 1941, when its effectiveness and usage was curtailed as its bomb load and range were limited.
Production of the Dornier ended in mid-1940, in favour of the newer and more powerful Junkers Ju 88. The successor of the Do 17 was the much more powerful Dornier Do 217, which started to appear in strength in 1942. Some remaining Do 17s continued in various Luftwaffe roles until the end of the war, as a glider tug, research, and trainer aircraft. A considerable number were sent to other Axis nations, with few surviving the war. The last was scrapped in Finland.
Design
The forward fuselage had a conventional stepped cockpit, with a fully glazed nose. Early variants were labelled the "flying pencil" owing to its sleek and continuous "stick-like" lines. As a result of the lessons learned in the Spanish Civil War, the cockpit roof was raised and the lower, or bottom half, of the crew compartment was a typical under-nose gondola or "Bodenlafette" (abbreviated Bola): this inverted-casemate design ventral defensive armament position was a common feature of most German medium bombers. The Bola was extended back to the leading edge of the wings where the lower-rear gunners position and upper-rear gunner position were level with each other. As with contemporary German bombers, the crew were concentrated in a single compartment.
The cockpit layout consisted of the pilot seat and front gunner in the forward part of the cockpit. The pilot sat on the left side, close up to the Plexiglas windshield. One of the gunners sat on the right seat, which was set further back to provide room for the 7.92 mm MG 15 machine gun to be traversed in use. The Do 17 usually carried a crew of four: the pilot, a bombardier and two gunners. The bomb-aimer also manned the MG 15 in the nose glazing and Bola-housed rear lower position. The two gunners operated the forward-firing MG 15 installed in the front windshield, the two MGs located in the side windows (one each side) and the rearward firing weapon. The cockpit offered a bright and panoramic view at high altitude The standard ammunition load was 3,300 rounds of 7.92 mm ammunition in 44 double-drum magazines.
The wings were of a broad 55 m2 area and had a span of 18 m with a straight leading edge which curved in a near-perfect semicircle into the trailing edge. The positions of the wing roots were offset. The leading edge wing root merged with the top of the fuselage and cockpit. As the wing extended backwards, by roughly two thirds, it declined downwards at a sharp angle so that the trailing edge wing root ended nearly halfway down the side of the fuselage increasing the angle of incidence.[19] This design feature was used on all future Dornier bomber designs, namely the Dornier Do 217.The trailing edge was faired into the round fuselage shape. The engine nacelle was also faired into the flaps. The extreme rear of the nacelle was hollow and allowed the flap with an attached vertical slot to fit into the cavity when deployed.
The fuselage was 15.80 m long. It was thin and narrow, which presented an enemy with a difficult target to hit. The fuselage had twin vertical stabilizers to increase lateral stability. The power plant of the Z-1 was to have been the Daimler-Benz DB 601 but, owing to shortages from priority allocation for Bf 109E and Bf 110 fighter production, it was allocated Bramo 323 A-1 power plants. The Bramos could only reach 352 km/h at 1,070 m . The limited performance of the Bramo 323s ensured the Do 17 could not reach 416 km/h at 3,960 m in level flight when fully loaded. The range of the Do 17Z-1 at ground level was 635 nmi ; this increased to 1,370 km at 4,700 m . This gave an average attack range of 740 km The introduction of the Bramo 323P increased the Z-2 performance slightly in all areas.
The Dornier had self-sealing fuel tanks to protect fuel stored in the wings and fuselage. This reduced the loss of fuel and risk of fire when hit in action, and often enabled the aircraft to return. Twenty oxygen bottles were provided for crew use during long flights above 3,660 m Communications usually consisted of FuG X, the later FuG 10, navigational direction finder PeilG V direction finder (PeilG - Peilgerät) and the FuG 25 IFF and FuBI 1 blind-landing devices. The crew communicated by EiV intercom. A primitive autopilot device, the Siemens K4Ü, was installed and could maintain bearing using the rudder's control surfaces.
The bomb bay had four bomb racks, the No. 5 for SC50 bombs and two ETC 500 racks to carry heavier loads of up to 500 kg each. A Lotfe A, or B bombsight was issued together with the BZA-2 aperture (a modernised optical lens system).The bomb bay allowed two options, one was to carry four 250 kg bombs for a load of 1,000 kg , which reduced aircraft range. With half the maximum load, ten 50 kg bombs, additional fuel tanks could be placed into the forward part of the bomb bay to increase range. The bomb aimer aimed the bombs via the Lotfe (A, B or C 7/A, depending on the variant) bomb sight which was in the left side of the nose compartment directly under and forward of the pilot. When fully loaded, the Z-1 weighed 7,740 kg
