Claude Honoré Désiré Dornier was a German airplane designer and founder of Dornier GmbH. His notable designs include the 12-engine Dornier Do X flying boat, for decades the world’s largest and most powerful airplane.
Dornier completed his education in 1907 at Munich’s technical college and three years later began working for Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin, at the Zeppelin airship factory at Friedrichshafen. In 1911 he designed the first all-metal plane, and Zeppelin permitted him to found a separate division of the company, the Dornier aircraft works at Friedrichshafen. Wooden and metal fighters designed by Dornier were used by Germany in World War I, after which he assumed full control of his aircraft factory.
During the 1920s he built widely used seaplanes, and in 1929 he introduced the Do X, at the time the world’s largest aircraft. With a wingspan of 157 feet (48 metres) and length of 130 feet (40 metres), the Do X was powered by 12 engines and carried 169 passengers; in 1931 it flew from Germany to New York City. Because of its great cost, however, the Do X was abandoned. During World War II the Dornier 17, a twin-engined bomber, was a standby of the Luftwaffe. Construction of aircraft in postwar Germany was forbidden by the Allies, so Dornier established a factory in Spain. Shortly after the lifting of the Allied ban in 1955, he opened a factory near Munich to construct the Dornier 27, a light, general-purpose transport; the Dornier 31, a STOL aircraft; and the Dornier 32, a collapsible helicopter.