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In 1933 , a major part of the Nazi reorganization of the country consisted of a complete overhaul of the German aircraft industry. In particular, the Nazis wanted the technical capacities of quickly building large numbers of warplanes for the new Luftwaffe . Therefore technical expertise was not as important as production capacity and quickly letters of intent were sent out to all bigger production facilities to probe their interest in building airplanes. Blohm + Voss shipyards in Hamburg rose to the challenge and founded an aircraft factory, with the intent to build long-range passenger seaplanes for Lufthansa . It was at that time commonly perceived that transatlantic air transport would soon take over the role filled by the luxury liners of that time. It was however also commonly perceived that those planes would be seaplanes and flying boats as they could use the infrastructure and capacity of the seaports already in place. By building seaplanes, Blohm + Voss wanted to make sure it stayed on the forefront of the developments and also keep a safeguard in case seaplanes would render their own ship-building business obsolete. An unofficial part of the intentions of the new factory however was that it would also be ready to compete in every military contract the (then still clandestine) Luftwaffe would ask for, either with its own designs or as a subcontractor. This was immediately illustrated by the choice of Richard Vogt as chief designer. Vogt at that time had just returned from Japan where he served as a designer and consultant for the modernization of the Japanese air forces. As a result the aircraft produced from 1933 to the end of World War II prove an interesting mix of passenger planes, armed civil airplane designs used as military transporters and pure-bred warplanes. The first airplanes were produced under the name of 'Hamburger Flugzeugbau' and therefore according to the RLM Aircraft Designation System were given the company designation Ha, and the number range 137 to 144. The name of the Blom & Voss shipyards however proved too strong and therefore the aircraft designs were commonly adressed as "Blom & Voss, type Ha..." followed by the design number. To end this confusion, the Reichsluftfartministerium gave in to the unavoidable and in 1938 changed the company code to BV.
Of this aircraft, only the BV 138 'Flying shoe' attained serial production. All other aircraft either remained prototypes or were limited to a small number of preseries/purpose build machines. Nevertheless, work on the prototypes and series production of the BV138 kept the plant busy throughout the war. Because of the double naming of the planes of that period, the planes themselves will be discussed in the article about Blohm + Voss , even if they were originally produced under the name of 'Hamburger Flugzeugbau' The German air industry was suspended at the end of World War II . The company re-emerged in 1956 as part of Flugzeugbau Nord and license built Nord Noratlas . In 1961, Focke-Wulf , Weserflug and Hamburger Flugzeugbau joined forces in the Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO) to develop rockets. In the mid 1960's Hamburger Flugzeugbau worked on a design for a twin-jet HFB314 aimed at medium-haul market that the Caravelle was enjoying a success in. The design did not get off the drawing board with the company becoming involved in the production of the French-German Transall C-160 military transport. It also developed and built a private jet aircraft called the HFB320 'Hansa Jet' which first flew in 1964 . This aircraft didn't bring in any orders either, but the company survived as subcontractor for various German -and increasingly European co-production- aircraft project |
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