The 1929 Schneider Trophy

The Dornier proposal envisaged the highly unorthodox configuration of an abbreviated fuselage nacelle mounted above twin floats by means of splayed aerofoil-section struts, an engine mounted fore and aft of the pilot in the fuselage nacelle, and vertical surfaces attached directly to the tails of the floats. The proposed power plants were either BMW IX 12-cylinder liquid-cooled Vee engines with an anticipated maximum output of 800 hp at 1,780 rpm or Daimler-Benz F 2 12-cylinder liquid-cooled inverted-Vee engines with a calculated maximum output of 1,000 hp at 1,800 rpm, and these were to be mounted as a tractor and as a pusher, their airscrews rotating in opposite directions to cancel out torque. The wing was mounted low on the fuselage nacelle and wire-braced to both the fuselage and the floats; the single-step floats possessed a high beam-to-length ratio and accommodated all fuel.
A model of the Domier project was displayed at the Internationale Luftfahrt Ausstellung (ILA) in 1928, but no funds were forthcoming for the construction of a prototype. By coincidence, one of Italy's entries in the 1929 Schneider Trophycontest, the Savoia-Marchetti SM 65 (eventually withdrawn from the competition), bore a striking resemblance in concept to the Dornier project.