Building around the treaty

Dr.-Ing. Adolf Rohrbach founded his company in Berlin in 1922 to build aeroplanes on the metal stressed-skin principle, where the skin itself carries the loads. The timing was awkward: the Treaty of Versailles banned Germany from building or exporting large aircraft. Rohrbach’s answer was to set up a Danish company, Rohrbach-Metall-Aeroplan Co. A/S, to build his early designs abroad. Only when the rules relaxed in 1926 could the series be built in Berlin.

The Roland and its records

The one Rohrbach that sold in numbers was the Ro VIII Roland, a ten-seat trimotor that flew in 1926 and went straight to Deutsche Luft Hansa on the Berlin to London route. In its early years it held 22 world records. Three early Rolands went to Iberia for its inaugural Madrid to Barcelona service, and in 1932 Adolf Hitler hired one from Luft Hansa for his campaign flights. Rohrbach’s licence also crossed the North Sea: Beardmore built the giant Inflexible in Scotland, with a wingspan greater than a B-29’s.

Swallowed by Weser

Commercial success never matched the engineering. The Romar flying boat of 1928 was the last Rohrbach design, and only four were built. By 1934 the company had been taken over by Weser Flugzeugbau, where Adolf Rohrbach became technical director. Its methods outlived it. After the Inflexible was dismantled at Martlesham Heath in 1930, its structure was examined for the effects of corrosion on light-alloy stressed skin, and one of its main wheels survives in the Science Museum in London.

Fábricas

• Rohrbach Metall-Flugzeugbau GmbH · Berlin — Production in Germany from 1926
• Rohrbach-Metall-Aeroplan Co. A/S · Denmark — Front company used to build early aircraft outside Versailles limits

Gente

• Adolf Rohrbach · founder, engineer — Pioneer of metal stressed-skin construction; later technical director at Weser Flugzeugbau

Récords y primicias

• Ro VIII Roland held 22 world records in its early years
• Beardmore Inflexible, built to Rohrbach principles, spanned 157 ft, about 16 ft more than a B-29