Dart Aircraft - History

History

The company was founded by Alfred R.Weyl and Erich P.Zander, as Zander and Weyl Limited at Dunstable. In March 1936 the company name was changed to Dart Aircraft Limited. The company began by constructing gliders, and also constructed replicas of several historic aircraft including in 1937 a replica of the Blériot cross-channel aircraft.

Alfred Richard Oscar Weyl, A.F.RAe.S., A.F.I.A.S., F.B.I.S., died on 23 February 1959. Born in Berlin 1898, he came to the UK in 1935 and acquired British nationality. In Germany he had held a number of responsible technical posts following active service in the Royal Prussian Air Corps in the First World War. He was a senior staff officer in the D.V.L. (Research Institute for Aeronautics) and was subsequently principal assistant to the professor of the aeronautical engineering department at Berlin university. At other periods he was in charge of special projects and did a considerable amount of test flying of prototypes. After the war he turned to design work and was responsible for a light sporting monoplane built by Udet-Flugzeugbau at Munich (later the Messerschmitt works). Soon after coming to England he founded the firm of Zander & Weyl in partnership with E. P. Zander. Later, as Dart Aircraft Ltd., the company produced the ultra-light Dart Kitten. Alfred Weyl was also an authority on armament (on which subject he contributed some important articles to Flight) and self-sealing fuel tanks, and his researches included tailless aircraft development, guided-missile design and aircraft plastics technology.(FLIGHT, 6 March 1959)