A shipyard learns to fly

Hamburger Flugzeugbau was founded on 4 July 1933 by the brothers Rudolf and Walther Blohm as the aircraft subsidiary of their shipyard, Blohm & Voss, on the Elbe island of Finkenwerder. The logic was simple: a yard that could build steel ships could build metal aircraft. Its first design, the Ha 135 biplane trainer by Reinhold Mewes, flew on 28 April 1934 and won no orders, and the early Ha 137 dive bomber fared no better, but the Ha 139 mail seaplane flew for Deutsche Luft Hansa.

Flying boats and oddities

Under the Blohm & Voss name the firm produced some of the strangest aircraft of the war. The BV 138 Seedrache trimotor patrol flying boat was the only type to enter both series production and front-line service. The BV 141 reconnaissance aircraft, with its crew nacelle offset from the fuselage, reached about 20 pre-production examples. Twelve six-engine BV 222 Wiking flying boats served, and the single BV 238 was the largest aircraft built by any of the Axis powers.

The Hansa Jet

HFB was re-established as an independent company in 1956, with Hermann Pohlmann, designer of the Junkers Ju 87, as chief designer. It joined Entwicklungsring Nord in 1961, was a major partner in the Transall C-160 and contributed to the early Airbus. Its own aircraft was the HFB 320 Hansa Jet, a business jet with forward-swept wings that first flew in 1964 and was built in moderate numbers. In May 1969 HFB merged into Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm; Finkenwerder is now an Airbus plant.

Fábricas

• Finkenwerder works · Finkenwerder, Hamburg — Now Airbus Hamburg-Finkenwerder

Gente

• Rudolf and Walther Blohm · founders — Owners of Blohm & Voss
• Reinhold Mewes · designer — Designed the Ha 135
• Hermann Pohlmann · chief designer from 1956 — Earlier designed the Junkers Ju 87

Récords y primicias

• BV 238: largest aircraft built by any Axis power