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Re: Weimar Doppeldecker
Hallo again Clint
Well, this is really a hornets nest.
My friend Kees in Holland, knew the company and he sent me some photos and pointed me to a discussion about the company on the Aerodrome site.
Census seems to be as follows
Flugzeugbau (or Firma) Manhardt & Schmidt was from Leipzig and the pilot Erich Schmidt was the instructor for the flying school of that firm. Their first design was a Farman look-a-like type from 1911 which they called Sachsen Doppeldecker (it seems they called all other aircraft the same thing)
The company was one of the first to set up a factory at the airfield Leipzig-Lindenthal. It moved to Leipzig-Mockau in 1913 when the new airfield and Luftschiffhalle was opened there. Untill 1914 it remained independent but in the end was bought up by DFW. Their last design, a 1914 biplane on floats, was not completed.
Mainly the company name is given as Sächsische Automobil- und Flugzeugwerke"- hence the confusion with the other saxon company in Leipzig, the SFW, that built "Thiele biplanes".
Other names were"Flugzeugwerke Sachsen-Doppeldecker" and Lange gives: later - "Erich Schmidt Flugzeugwerke". Thus it seems Schmidt went on his own in ca 1913. Perhaps Manhardt went on his own somewhere else (He has been stated to have been a pupil of Schmidt, taking his licence in 1912).
The photo with the title Weimarische Flugschule u. Flugzeugwerke Inhaber Gustav Anger is intriguing.
One source claims there never existed a company like that, but I am not sure. Maybe, just maybe, when DFW bought Sächsische Automobil und Flugzeugwerke, Schmidt and this Anger (financier as well?) went their own way and built a single aircraft later in 1914, as shown in the photo on sale.
I have asked Kees about this and his opinion. So let's see what he answers.
As you can see Lange has a little bit about all this, but not much....
Cheers
Stig
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