This a twin motorcycle engined homebuilt aircraft called DOWA 81, designed and built by Dr Wagner. It has never flown. It was built in secrecy at his home, but he was imprisoned by the StaSi before it could be used to flee East Germany in 1981. Dr Wagner and his family were imprisoned and he and his wife and three kids were later "bought" free by West Germany. The aircraft is deemed airworthy and would have flown. Dr Wagner successfully designed and flew several small aircraft in West (or reunited) Germany.
@@hansw5067if you have only two motorcycles to take their 250 cbcm engines and wheels, your aircraft has to be very efficient in aerodynamics, therefore it clearly looks like a glider.. And it isn‘t clear that the engines would have had enough energy for a powerful climb. (search for „wagner fluchtflugzeug“)
@@hansw5067 I wondered this same thing and I’m an experienced powered airplane and glider pilot. The propellers are easy to miss…they are mounted behind the wing, just aft of the landing gear/engines (we call this a “pusher” configuration).
Heard of the Colditz Cock? POWs in a WW2 German prison were building a glider for some of them to escape with but was liberated by US troops in April 1945.
Surely not. You are the heart of democracy with free elections. Our politicians tell us so as they send out tax dollars to you saying we are defending democracy. I truly hope they aren't lying to us😅
Please attempt to not post stupidity. Of course it would have solved the one problem with the family that built it. But they were caught and arrested. Random circumstance has nothing to do with whether a brilliant idea is good or workable.
This was a glider, as it was intended to take off from a track built along the ridge of a roof. The wooden-framed, cloth- covered aircraft was intended to rest upon a wheeled dolly which would be accelerated to flying speed by a rope tied to a cement-filled bathtub. The rope went up from the falling bathtub, via a pulley mounted on the end of the track, and back to the dolly. The glider was only intended to carry its crew of two across a nearby river, and to alight on its ventral skid (hinged, and sprung with a tennis ball) in a meadow just across the river. The Colditz Allied Escape Committee vetoed the use of the glider. Its design has twice been proved sound: two full-size gliders have been built and flown. Search "Colditz Cock documentary" on RU-vid for details of these flights.
