ON AUGUST 5, Ken Pudney, secretary of Penarth Aviation Society, will be hosting a talk on the Dornier Aircraft Company.

Founded by Claudius Dornier in 1914 at Friedrichshafen, the Dornier company came to prominence in the 1920s as a constructor of large flying boats.

The company also built several passenger planes used by Lufthansa. During most of this era Dornier complied with the Versailles Treaty and manufactured its aircraft outside Germany; however, with the rise of the Nazi party, the treaty was effectively ignored and aircraft manufacture resumed in Germany.

Arguably Dornier's most successful design was the Do 17 Flying Pencil, originally intended as a passenger aircraft it was too narrow and had a poor passenger capacity and was thus rejected.

Development was then switched to its use as a bomber in the mid 1930s in such role was used extensively in the Second World War.

Post war Dornier produced several short take-off and landing designs and experimented with jet propulsion.

The company became active in many other fields such as satellite, and medical technology - in fact a Dornier camera was used on the Hubble Space telescope from 1990 to 2002.

In 1985 Dornier merged with Daimler-Benz, then with Fairchild to form Fairchild-Dornier. This company became insolvent in 2002.

The Dornier family is still involved with the seaplane industry.

The meeting will take place at Penarth Conservative Club at 7.45pm for 8pm.

Penarth Aviation Society meets on the first Friday of the month at the Penarth Conservative Club.

Visitors are welcome to attend.

Further information may be found on their website at penarthaviationsociety.co.uk or Facebook page at facebook.com/penarthaviationsociety.co.uk