Dornier Do L II

The Dornier Do L II, known as the Delphin III, was a German commercial flying boat built at the Dornier branch works at Altenrhein in Switzerland. It began in mid 1924 as an idea for a sea-based counterpart of the Do B Komet III landplane on the basis of the Delphin II, but from autumn 1926 a larger boat for ten passengers was designed instead, with wings and tail almost the same as the Komet III. It was a braced shoulder-wing all-metal flying boat with a keeled, stepped hull, sponsons and an engine nacelle above the cockpit. Altenrhein built only three, numbered 151 to 153 and called Do L II Bas after their BMW VI engine, for lack of demand. The first flew about 30 March 1928 and was used for pleasure flights over Lake Constance until a failed landing destroyed it in June 1929, killing the pilot Georg Zinsmaier and four of six passengers. The second was shown at Berlin in 1928 and later flew for a Konstanz airline, and the third was never used.