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Adolph Rohrbach 1889-1939

Aircraft Pioneer

Adolph Rohrbach, born 28 March, 1889 in Gotha, Germany; Died 6. July 1939 in Kampen, Germany. Noted for his pioneering all metal multi-engined monoplane aircraft such as the Zeppelin Staaken E 4 / 20 designed in 1917.

Family Background

Born 28 March 1889 in Gotha, Germany, Rohrbach was the son of Carl Rohrbach, Director of Schools for Gotha and a noted amateur astronomer. Rohrbach married the noted pioneering photographer Charlotte Rohrbach[link] (21 March 1902 - 1 February 1981). Rohrbach died in Kampen, Germany, on 6 July 1939.

Career Outline

Rohrbach worked first at the famed Blohm and Voss[link] shipbuilding concern in Hamburg before being recruited by Count Ferdinand Zeppelin's[link] pioneering airship and aircraft company Luftsschiffbau GmbH[link] in Friedrichshafen where he was a colleague of Claude Dornier[link]. Rohrbach was appointed Chief Constructor at the Zeppelin aircraft company Zeppelin Flugzeugwerke[link] in Staaken near Berlin where he worked with other noted aircraft pioneers such as Junkers and again with Dornier. Like Junkers[link] and Dornier, Rohrbach also went on to found his own aircraft company after World War One, first in Denmark and after 1926 in Germany.

Rohrbach's greatest contribution to the development of aircraft was his pioneering work on all metal semi-monocoque stressed skin multi-engined heavy lift aircraft which set the general configuration and design parameters still used by most aircraft today. His genius is epitomised in his 1917 design of a four engined 20 passenger airliner, the Zeppelin Staaken E4/20[link]. The E4/20 was the world's first four engined all-metal aircraft and the granddaddy of all modern heavy lift transport aircraft, setting the convention for aircraft configuration and lay-out for a century. As the Smithsonian Institute notes, but for the accident of history of being on the losing side in WWI, Rohrbach would have been a Boeing or Douglas.

The E4/20 was completed and test flown after the war under the supervision of the Allied Control Commission which supervised and monitored Germany's post-war aero-industry. From photographic evidence there are also indictaions that it may have been permitted to operate some limited passenger flights, perhaps as a proof of concept.

Heartbreakingly in 1922 the Allied Control Commission ordered the scrapping of the E4/20, apparently to prevent the possibility of its conversion to a bomber or trans-Atlantic flyer. Similar aircraft emerged a good decade or more later from Boeing, DeHavilland and Douglas, notably that workhorse of the air, the DC3.

Rohrbach's later work built on the success of the E4/20 but sadly he was never as successful as Dornier or Junkers, though his aircraft were perhaps more innovative and robust. At a time when most planes were string and canvas contraptions, Rohrbach emphasised structural integrity, safety and redundancy, thus the 4 engined E4/20 was capable of flying on two engines.