Understanding the 1920s through period technology is not a
new idea, but the Junkers G.38 flying wing is not just important technology,
but also important culturally as a figure of 1920s modernism and cultural
change. Since this is (usually) a blog
about gaming and role playing games, I want to also work in the social context
for those RPGers out there who want to make the period more accessible, so
pardon my occasional typical digressions. To see some of the pictures in a larger size, hover over the picture and right click to bring up the menu and select, "open link in new tab/window" which will be larger than the slide show size.
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The Roaring
20’s roared in more ways that one and modern technology was doing things
thought impossible twenty or even ten years before. The medium of radio blossomed in the 20s, cars became available
to the common man in the 20s, everything moved faster, everything was more
connected, everything was becoming more modern, more streamlined, and the
economy in the United Sates was taking off.
The rests of the world was also tearing forward technologically and
socially with new inventions, and faster and better also. Well, actually the economic outlook was bad
for most of Europe and extremist organizations were on the rise, with social
disorder everywhere in the wake of WWI and the Treaty
of Versailles. The world order had
been reshuffled and somebody was dealing from the bottom of the deck.
With that long introduction, I want to talk about a modern,
futuristic plane created in the interwar period of Weimar Germany, the Junkers G.38. It didn’t just appear out of nowhere, but
was the brainchild of Hugo Junkers, who had a belief in air transportation even
before the Great War. Hugo Junkers who founded
the Junkers Flugzeug- und
Motorenwerke AG aircraft company, patented the deep-wing concept in 1910,
the great grandfather of the flying wing.
Junkers engineer Ernst
Zindel designed an aircraft that was all metal and the wing encased the
engines, fuel cells as well as the cargo/passenger area, with the pilots housed
forward in a house of glass. Truly the
modern era had arrived and in this case form did follow function, but also the
new modernist philosophy of the age.[1]
Hugo Junkers had a vision of modern air travel using a
monowing aircraft that was all metal in an age of multi wing aircraft that were
wood and canvas. Early on in his
career, his Deep Wing Patent (Nurflügel design) of 1910 showed where his mind
was going even before the Great War and just seven years after the Wright Brother’s
breakthrough in controlled heavier than air flight. In WWI, Junkers was cajoled into making warcraft for the German
Empire, but it was done so reluctantly.
After the war, Junkers went back into aircraft design for civilian
transports.
Junkers returned to the road to the flying wing by starting
modestly with the G.24
single engine aircraft, introduced in 1925 and then the G.31 trimotor design of
1928. Note the American Ford version of the Trimotor
came out in 1925 but owed a debt of gratitude to Junker’s pioneer work. Next came the G.38 model of 1929 and
then the Ju 52,
another trimotor design from 1931, which continued to be in commission for
decades, just as the Ford trimotor proved to be a durable workhorse.
Junkers crowning achievement was the G.38 transport, which
was the acme of modernist aircraft design up to that time. Many people put their dreams on paper and a
few made a model, even fewer made the full-sized aircraft, but darn few
actually flew them successfully and went into production. The G.38 was the culmination of decades of
work and dreams, which became a reality.
This flying wonder had a crew of seven and as an airline
could carry 30 to 34 passengers, depending on the modification with three
cabins each holding 11 passengers.
There was also wash rooms and a smoking cabin as well as a galley for
preparing meals. The great thing about
this design was that the leading edge of the wings had windows and there was a
viewing area in the front of the nose of the aircraft that could hold two.
I was just over 76 feet long and a wingspan of 144
feet. It featured two pair of disparate
engines completely in the wing.
Powering the craft were two Junkers L55 V-12 water cooled piston engines
with a four bladed, fixed pitch wooden propeller on each inboard engine and two
Junkers L8a six cylinder water cooled piston engines with a two bladed wooden
fixed pitch wooden propeller outboard.
Later the design was changed so that that all four engines had four
bladed propellers. The G.38 could develop 140 mph as a max speed and the
cruise was 109 mpg with a range of 2,150 miles without refueling and a service
ceiling of 12,106 feet. Not a bad
design for an old Victorian guy who was born in the 1850s.
Early on in its career, the G.38 was the largest plane in
the world and the passenger accommodations were considered sumptuous when the
passenger capacity was reduced somewhat.
Remember the passengers were seated within the wings with lots of
room. There were even two extra sets in
an observation section in the nose of the aircraft. The G.38 was even competing with Zeppelins in the prestige
passenger service sector. Constant
upgrades in design and with the engines kept the aircraft competitive, flying
up to WWII, during which time they were commandeered by the Luftwaffe for military
use. None of the G.38s survived the
war.
Other countries were impressed with the Junkers design. Japan sent a delegation to Germany to study aircraft design and this led to the G.38 being built under contract by Mitsubishi as the Ki-20. Six were built and one still survives, housed in the Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Hall. William Stout’s Ford Trimotor airliner was based on Junker designs. Tupolev’s ANT-20, the eight engined monster, eventually the largest aircraft when it was built also owes a debt to Hugo Junkers. See also my post about Miazaki’s animated film, The Wind Rises.
Despite his triumphs, Hugo Junkers didn’t fare well with the
end of the Weimar Republic and the new malignant regime which came to power in
Germany. In 1933 his company, factory,
and patents were seized by the NAZIs, and he died a broken man in 1935.[2]
The flying wing was a holy grail and an aeronautical icon of
modernist aircraft design that strove not to only improve overall performance,
but to make the plane look modern, espousing aesthetic ideas of simplicity of
design. The G.38 was a gigantic leap up
from the earlier Ju G.24 design. The
original 1910 deep wing patent and the Junkers G 38 aircraft were the direct
ancestors of the later US
Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing and the later Northrop-Grumman bomber, the B-2 Spirit. 
As a Raiders of the Lost Ark tie-in, (yes I know it takes
place in the late 30s) the airplane that Indy fights the sergeant around and
under appears to be a modified and scaled down version of the G.38, probably
due to budget constraints as well as the fact that on the full-size aircraft
the props were way above your head with no possibility of being hit by the
blade. See also http://fictional-flying-machines.wikia.com/wiki/BV-38_Flying_Wing
A few interesting errors in Raiders for those who
have an eye for such things: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/goofs
For you gamers out there, I hope that this thumbnail sketch of the G.38 and its milieu helps in understanding the 1920s a little better. There is plenty of information out there about the G.38 for making scenarios and I hope this introduction will be of help. I know that many of the concepts I have skated over in this post are far to in depth to be covered by a single article, no less a book, so I leave it to the reader to conduct his/her own research into these often contradictory and revised concepts that had great currency in the 1920s. I know that I have probably made a few errors here, so I would appreciate it if some of you air historians would help me out.
CoastConFan
Footnotes
[1] Doc Savage, that Übermensch of American
modern interwar progressive
pulp figures, had a flying wing in his arsenal of modern gadgets in his war
against crime. For a bit of contrasting
reading and viewing an opposing view, try Ayn Rand’s Objectivist
film, based loosely on the book, The Fountainhead (1943). The movie and
film gives a glimpse into a highly actualized and objectified individual in the
person of the protagonist Roark, who is closer to the original Übermensch
concept than was adopted by the National Socalists – a Nietzschesque
artist-tyrant character functioning in a real world with unbendable personal
ethics. Along that line, see also her
book, Atlas Shrugged (1957), but I digress.
[2] Hugo Junkers was
closely associated with the Bauhaus
Movement, which closed its doors at about the same time he was shorn of
his company. For you students of 20s
art and architecture, understanding the Art Deco and Bauhaus movements is
important in grasping the huge changes culturally which flowered in the
post-war environment, although it had its deep roots prewar, often as a
reaction against Victorianism and Art Nouveau as well as 19th
century instructions. For you Call of
Cthulu RPG players, keep in mind a middle aged person in the mid 1920s had been
born in the 1880s, which was a world away in every sense.
Notes and Links of Interest
Social change as well as technological change is key in understanding
the 1920s and these articles may help the CoC and Dieselpunk gamer:
Progressive Era of social and technological modernization
whose roots sprang from the Victorian Era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
See also The Efficiency Movement, which became a major
fetish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency_Movement
A bridge between two periods see the article covering
1893-1918 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency_Movement http://immigrantentrepreneurship.org/volume.php?rec=3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco
which eventually becomes
Some background on the 20s http://www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/03_The-World-since-1900/04_The-Roaring-20s/04_The-Roaring-20s.htm
Europe in the interwar period http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/roaring-twenties-europe-the-interwar-period/content-section-0
I know it’s a little shopworn to make reference to the F.
Scott Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby (1925) – which rejection of the
cold materialism of acquisition at any price but the mid 20s date of this novel
shows that people were aware of the changes even early on in the Jazz Age, but
it’s important to note that the novel was published at the peak of that era,
showing that people were cognizant what was happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald book downloads for free
Flappers and Philosophers (1921) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4368
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6695
The Great Gatsby (1925) http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200041h.html
As a Raiders of the Lost Ark (yes I know it takes
place in the late 30s) tie-in, the airplane Indy fights the sergeant around and
under appears to be a modified and scaled down version of the G.38, probably
due to budget constraints as well as the fact that on the full-size aircraft
the props were way above your head with no possibility of being hit by the
blade. http://fictional-flying-machines.wikia.com/wiki/BV-38_Flying_Wing
A few interesting errors in Raiders for those who
have an eye for such things: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/goofs
Two salient films that express the hopes and fears of the
Progressive movement are embodied in the movies Metropolis and The Shape of
Things to Come. Worth considering also
is Wells’ 1895 book, The Time Machine, which takes these concepts to
their (literally) ultimate end in his nihilistic but oddly hopeful book. It later made into several movies over the
years. Download The Time Machine for
free on Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35 For a little extra credit, consider Olaf
Stapledon’s classic, Last Men and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far
Future (1932), an early transhuman SF story download http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html
More Information on Large Aircraft
Also the German Boat Plane trans-Atlantic flights to South
America
of interest to readers of the 20s-30s and to CoC and
Dieselpunk RPGrs.
On par with the G.38. see also some information on
boatplanes: Dornier DoX a huge plane
for 1929 See also Wikipedia article on flying boats
Although too late for the 1920s, it’s worth reading up on
the Flying Clipper boatplanes http://www.clipperflyingboats.com/
and http://www.flyingclippers.com/panam.html
List of flying wing designs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flying_wings
See also the Spruce Goose, a monster of a wooden transport
craft. It’s a little out of period, but
shows a logical progression of giant transports first seen in the 1920s.
Review and image of Revell's 1/144 scale model of the Junkger G.38 with
some good background material
David Horn Collection photo of Junkers G.38 D-2000 in flight
The first picture in this post is Peregrine Heathcote’s work as seen on the blog site, Art
Contrarian http://artcontrarian.blogspot.com/2014/06/peregrine-heathcotes-1930s-pseudo.html
Russian aircraft Kaminin K-7 from 1933 – this is far more Dieselpunk than I
expected and has a few amusing fantasy mockups (G.38/K-7 fusions) along with some facts in the
article.
Text © William Murphy aka CoastConFan 2015; you may link to this article,
quote if you like, but give me a little credit please, it took time to research and
write this article. Photos and art are property
of their respective owners. This is a non-commercial site and I make no money from these articles.
