Claude Dornier - Pioneer of Aviation

Documentary | 2018 | HD | 90 minutes

Claude Dornier - Pioneer of Aviation

a film by Thomas Wartmann and Kerstin Horner 

Claude Dornier is a name of world renown. 68 types of aircraft were developed by Dornier, many of them revolutionary in concept and way ahead of their time.
Memories of the aviation pioneer form the basis for key scenes in his life, which is told in rare archive images and with the help of elaborate animations.
 
Today the widely ramified family clan lives scattered all over the world. His grandchildren, who still build seaplanes according to the design ideas of Claude Dornier, pursue the question of the driving force behind the work of their grandfather.
The visionary with German-French roots worked from the beginnings of aviation to the landing on the moon. For some he is an obsessed designer and lateral thinker, for others a skilled entrepreneur who led a group with up to 23,000 employees.
With the seaplane Dornier WAL, which is also used by the polar explorer Roald Amundsen in his North Pole expedition, Dornier succeeds in its international breakthrough in the 1920s.
The twelve-engine DO X, then the largest aircraft in the world, makes its jump across the Atlantic and lands amidst the cheers of the masses in the port of New York in 1931.
Political developments fate over and over again Dornier's plans. In the First and Second World War, but also in the Cold War, he developed aircraft with groundbreaking technology. Due to a lack of civilian capabilities and ever-changing political aspirations in the 20th century, many of his projects are set shortly after the first flight.
In 1969, after the death of Claude Dornier, there is an open conflict within the family. The collapse of one of the most renowned family businesses in Germany begins.
To this day, German aviation and technology history without the name Dornier is unthinkable.