Due to the restrictions placed on German aircraft manufacturing by the Treaty of Versailles, Heinkel looked overseas for contracts, with some seaplane designs being licence-built in Sweden and working on catapult-launched seaplanes for the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In 1922 he established the Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke company at Warnemünde. In 1921, Heinkel was appointed head designer of the recently re-established Caspar-Werke, but soon left after a dispute over ownership of a design. After leaving Albatros, Heinkel designed several land- and seaplanes for the Hansa-Brandenburg company starting in 1914.Įrnst Heinkel (right) with Siegfried Günter. His aircraft were used by the Austro-Hungarian army and Germany's Kaiserliche Marine during the war. after the war Heinkel claimed to have designed the Albatros B.II, a successful reconnaissance and trainer aircraft used during the early stages of the First World War, but its main designer was in fact Robert Thelen. Soon afterwards, he got a job at Luft-Verkehrs Gesellschaft (LVG), who were building Farman aircraft. Heinkel crashed it in 1911 and suffered severe injuries. He decided that flight was the future of transportation, and the following year he built his first aircraft, working from a set of plans by Henri Farman. Heinkel studied at the Technical Academy of Stuttgart, where he initially became interested in aviation through a fascination with Zeppelins, and in 1909 attended an international airshow in Frankfurt am Main. As a young man he became an apprentice machinist at a foundry. Heinkel was born in Grunbach, today a part of Remshalden.

Stormy Life by Ernst Heinkel