News from MeierMotors South Germany EDTG

[51fixer]

Parts are made to specs. These aircraft and part designs grew from the original that came from the 30's.
The companies that designed them go back into the 20's or further.
Either they hadn't thought of it, didn't know how to do it and then didn't want to slow down production by making any changes.

[Matthias Dorst]

Time for some updates ....

At first, "new ships in town" Two customer-projects were delivered in the shop in February. A veryvery beautiful 450HP Stearman and a magnificant At-6, will say a Harvard Mk.IV. The birds came frome the States and will bes based here in Bremgarten/EDTG

at first my favorite bipe .... a dream on wings

[Matthias Dorst]

..... and the Harvard Mk.IV









center section



the wings



tailplane





Really a beauty !

[JDK]

Picking up a side note from a few pages back...

That is interesting about the meaning of German registration numbers. No chance of putting your initials in the number huh?

The biggest fun is to search a solution that fits

AFAIK, no other major nation requires such a specific and restrictive system, after the national code of international import. Anyone?

This is why the Lufthansa (Germany's national flag carrier, note, not just some farmer from Bavaria) weren't allowed to re-register their Junker Ju 52/3m as D-AQUI as it had been registered, in Germany, in the 1930s. It is now, because of the German system registered as D-CDLH as that's 'acceptable'.

However it's OK to carry 'D-AQUI' in huge letters all over the aircraft with the correct registration under the tail & wing, by virtue of 'an exception'.



One obviously wonders it it might just have been a lot more sensible to re-register it as AQUI, anyway...


(Images via Wikipedia)

With registrations of historic aircraft, rather than weight/type subsets, the French have F-AZxx, but I'm not familiar with the detail of that - over to the French members...

Regards,

[Chappie]

JDK- Thanks for the note about what is and is not allowed.

Matthias- Great photos as usual. I love bright yellow T-6s.


Chappie

[JDK]

Hi Chappie,
To be fair, I don't claim to know the German system properly, just one of the consequences (in the Junkers) of it. There was, as you know, a decent explanation (I'll refer to in future!) earlier.

And I'd second the praise and thanks to Matthias for the great photos, and English captions - way better than my German. But we must also pay thanks to Meier Motors for allowing that level of access and scrutiny; not all warbird workshop are comfortable with it, and we should recognise we are lucky to get it.

So thanks to all who make the thread happen,

Regards,

[Mike Halbrook]

The Harvard MKIV is the former "Lucky Duck" that was based at the Caldwell, Id airport. It participated in many of the local airshows, and was a frequent "guest" at the Warhawk Air Museum. Looks like it has a new home where it will be well looked after.

Last edited by Mike Halbrook on Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Matthias Dorst]

Thank you for your kind words, its always a big pleasure for me to show you the latest news.

The German system is not very complicated. The planes are registere with "D" for Deutschland = Germany and 4 following letters. The first letter shows always the weight of the plane :

[list=] German Registration System
[*]D-A aircraft heavier than 20 tons max. startweight
[*]D-B aircraft max.startweight 14 to 20 tons (for ex a Dash8)
[*]D-C aircraft max.startweight 5,7 up to 14 tons (Cessna Citation, in former days the SeaFury > D-CACE)
[*]D-E single engine aircraft max. 2 ton startweight , the so called "Echo"-Class, Pipers, Cessnas and so on
[*]D-F single engine aircraft from 2 up to 5,7 tons max startweight (for ex. the Pilatus PC-12 and of course the warbirds like the P-51)
[*]D-G multi engine with max. 2tons startweight
[*]D-H helicopters
[*]D-I multiengines 2 up to 5,7 tons max. startweight (for ex. a Cessna 310)
[*]D-K soraing planes with engine
[*]D-L in use for "airships" like blimps or the Zeppelin NT
[*]D-M the so called "ultralights". In Germany they are called "Luftsportgeraete" max startweight 472,5kg (about 900 pounds)
[*]D-N small and light soaringplanes. Something to jump from hills but the dont really fly like a plane
[*]D-O all sorts of ballons
[*]D-nnnn soaring planes, "n" stands for a number, will say D- four numbers
[/list]


Hope that helps

Btw. you can put your initals in the registration, thats no problem, only the first letter of the registration is reserved. Some regs are really tricky

The Spitfire T9 has got the reg D-FMKN . You can read the last three letters as Mk.IX
The Mustang I took a ride with has the reg D-FPSI .... the "S" looks in some fonts as a "5" , so the reg is to read P51
The Corsair will get the German regh D-FCOR , one of those Yaks got teh reg D-FJAK
The Spitfire Mk.VIIIc has got the reg D-FEUR .... the German word for fire is "FEUER" ... ups they have just forget a letter
The TF-51 project got the reg D-FUNN .... I think you dont need a translation

Btw, last week they opened the season with a fantastic sunsetflight with Spitfire TE184



and the TF-51 with the new revised Merlin



I love those sceneres

[redvanner]

@Matthias: Thanks for your pics and stream of information of what´s going on. Many thanks for your efforts, I do appreciate them. Your explanation of the German registration system is far more informative and better than mine . Keep those infos and pics coming..... There I S a warbird movement in Germany for sure, not the least due to the efforts of the Meier brothers.

@JDK: .....It is now, because of the German system registered as D-CDLH as that's 'acceptable'. ......

Hmmmmm, I would not say acceptable. A D-C XXX registration is (was) a "must be". The "DLH" as abbrevation for D eutsche L uft H ansa was just possible, as this combination of letters was not in use prior to "D-AQUI"´s registration. Not that much acceptable but simply possible. BTW not so many D-CXXX ships around.....

Michael

[Chappie]

Hi Chappie,
But we must also pay thanks to Meier Motors for allowing that level of access and scrutiny; not all warbird workshop are comfortable with it, and we should recognise we are lucky to get it.

I agree with you on this 100%.


Chappie

[JDK]

Thanks for the further comment chaps. At the risk of taking a minor point further...

Michael, I'm not sure what you're saying - I was simply saying any system that forces an aircraft to bear two registrations rather than making an exception presents a logical absurdity, and by over-prescription creates confusion (many people will reasonably assume the Ju 52/3m is registered D-AQUI, and be wrong - that's a system problem.)

The German system is not very complicated. The planes are registere with "D" for Deutschland = Germany and 4 following letters. The first letter shows always the weight of the plane :

My point is not about it's complexity, by the fact that it is more complex than it need be. Only Germany (AFAIK) and no other nation* has chosen to segregate its registrations into such subsets; so why not, and why has the German civil authority chosen to do so? (After all, the registration is an international arrangement foremost - deviations from the overarching international standard are not required.) And so there's always a few other questions to ask in cases like that:

1. What's the benefit?
You can id the aircraft by the subset letter - a nice, but obviously unnecessary function as most countries manage without it*.

2. What's the restriction/disadvantages?
Limits the number of registrations available exponentially by the loss of a multiplier letter, eliminates the re-use of historic registrations. Important? Probably not.

Is it necessary (what do other people do)?
No. And no. But very, very, Ordnung, hein?

I clam no expertise in registrations (and I certainly don't 'spot' them! ) but came across this German system due to the oddity of the Lufthansa Junkers, when writing about it, and as a result have remained intrigued. Precision is a funny thing; excess of precision can be a problem (IMHO) as much as a lack of it, but rarely gets called for it. The German system, again IMHO, simply boils down to 'that's how we do it here' and that's fine, but doesn't make it necessary, better or actually useful. The necessary level is segregating out ultralights and balloons, not weight bands of aircraft, and fundamentally, as long as there's some registration, then the fundamental purpose, internationally, is served.

Anyway, that's perhaps interesting, but a lot less than shiny aircraft, so I suggest we return to what most of us are interested in.

Regards,

*IIRC, the UK has different registration series for balloons / lighter than air craft, and many countries have brought in an entirely different system, or created a subset for ultralight or similar light aircraft; one could argue the German system is an extension of that, and I'd certainly argue it's an obsessive-compulsive lining up the jellybeans by colour and size thing.

[Matthias Dorst]

Thanks for the further comment chaps. At the risk of taking a minor point further...

My point is not about it's complexity, by the fact that it is more complex than it need be.

well .... let me say ..... its really typical German. Kind of useless and overruled but ruled. So the officials are standing in their own way. Again typical German. The D-CDLH is too light for an "A"-registration, but everyone in Germany nows the famous D-AQUI. Its a piece of history but its too light. And I can tell you, if there should be a way to register the Ju52 as D-AQUI, the Lufthansa would do it. The Lufthans is not a small shop, will say the have some might and some chance zu realise some things, but here ist the end of the road. As I said, typical German, strange, overruled and not very effective.

Another example to get the curve back to the job of MeierMotors. As you know, there is a SeaFury under restauration. It was formally registered as D-CACE in Germany while doing service for the new Luftwaffe as target-tower. Of course MM wants to register that ship again as D-CACE, preserving history again. But without weapons and/or target winch the fighter will be too light for the "C"-rule. It will be easier to register the ship in Germany, cause there was a former registry for that airframe, so SeaFuries are on the "list", so a "F"-registration will be no problem. But to get the D-CACE registry they must push up the max. start weight. To fly with less weight is no problem, but it must be possible for the plane to have a MTOW of min. 5,7tons. Another problem are the costs. Of course the "c"-ships have a more expensive insurance, its another aircraft-class (the same problem "C" to "A"). Such prblems are really normal in Germany.

Theres a joke going around in the Country..... The death of the rainforests in the world is a German problem, cause we need so much paper to get our rules written down"

Again, we Germans are a bit strange but we have good beer (of course the brewing is regulated since 17th century but that is one of the reasons while our beer is so god, no modern things in it)

[JDK]

Sounds like we are on the same page, but not being German I can't be quite as blunt about it as a native may!

Interesting on the Sea Fury, I hadn't realised the case was occurring again.

At the risk of opening a can of worms it's interesting that France, Britain and Germany (and to a lesser extent Italy, Span and elsewhere) all have very different styles of approach to the overarching question of aviation management and regulation under EASA in Europe. To be facetious, it's not a question of the European Rules, it's a question of how to defy or over apply them.

Anyway, thanks for finishing with a shiny aeroplane!

Regards,

[yankeepapa]

for JDK:

FAZXX marking are reserved to historic aircraft with no official follow up, or when A/C manufacturer have disappeared. I believe DGAC accept to classify aircraft with a F AZXX marking if the number of aircraft left is small (I do not remember , may be less than 5) and if the historical interest is accepted. before last year, no passengers were allowed on AZ aircraft. now it is possible. but between 20 and 30 T6 are now classified AZ. Stampes were allowed F AZ only recently as morane MS317 , fouga are all F AZ. etc.

for Mathias,

is it Marc zlin D EAPH in your hangar for maintenance?

YP

[Matthias Dorst]

for Mathias,

is it Marc zlin D EAPH in your hangar for maintenance?

YP

yepp, I think it was the annual