12/15/2015. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "The Focke-Wulf A 17 was the first of a series of successful light airliners and transports produced by the company under the generic name of Möwe (Seagull). The A 17 was basically an enlarged and improved A 16 with a wing of similar planform built of wood with plywood covering. The fuselage was constructed of welded steel tube with plywood covering to the rear of the cabin area and fabric aft. Provision was made for eight to nine passengers, with a crew of two housed in a fully glazed cockpit. The main wheels were attached to the fuselage by V-struts and braced to the underside of the wing by I-section struts and a fixed tail skid was provided.

The prototype A 17, D-1149 (c/n 32) made its first flight in 1927 powered by a 420 hp Gnome & Rhône Jupiter 9Ab nine-cylinder radial engine. It was delivered to the airline Norddeutsche Luftverkehr in 1928 and eventually passed to Lufthansa with the name Bremen. Eleven production aircraft were completed, these differing mainly in having increased rudder area. Several aircraft were fitted with a 480 hp Siemens Jupiter radial under the designation A 17a, and one machine, D-1444 Münster (c/n 50), was fitted with a 520 hp Junkers Jumo 5 heavy oil engine as the A 17c.

Of the eleven production A 17s completed, ten were delivered to Lufthansa who used them on their Berlin-Cologne and Cologne-Nuremburg services, they were all named after German cities:

C/n 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Registr. D-1342 D-1358 D-1367 D-1380 D-1388 D-1403 D-1416 D-1430 D-1444 D-1484

Name Emden Aurich Leer Oldenburg Stade Lüneburg Osnabrück Hannover Münster Bielefeld

The eleventh aircraft, pictured above, was used successively by the DVL, the Albatros company and the DVS. In 1934 two aircraft, D-1430 and D-1444 were reregistered D-UTOS and D-UNIK respectively."

Span: 65 ft 7.25 in (20.00 m)
Length: 48 ft 0 in (14.63 m)
Height: 10 ft 6 in (3.20 m)
Empty weight: 5,401 lb (2,450 kg)
Loaded weight: 8,818 lb (4,000 kg)
Max speed: 125 mph (201 kmh)
Service ceiling: 14,763 ft (4,500 m
Range: 497 mls (800 km)