Dornier KAD (Korps-Aufklärungs-Drohne)

[Voltzz]

Multiple articles in the Dornier Post mention a drone project called Korps-Aufklärungs-Drohne (Corps-Reconnaissance-Drone) as the German predecessor to the CL-89.
However i can find very little information on it. There is only one article (from 1971) that describes it in some detail. The article has a unlabeled picture that fits the desciption of the KAD. I translated the relevant part of the article using DeepL and also attached the original.

In recent years, Domier System has begun development of an all-weather reconnaissance drone (KAD) for the mid-range, i.e. the Corps' area of interest.
The KAD reconnaissance system is fully mobile. Simple flight planning and preparation, as well as automatic take-off, result in a short response time. The response time is very short due to the high flight speed of the guided missile and a short distance from the launch site to the forward edge of the defense.
The ground equipment is installed in landed vehicles. These are mainly standard vehicles. The entire system is air-loadable.
Designed for high subsonic speeds in cruise flight, the airframe is powered by a low-smoke solid-fuel engine. It is guided by an inertial navigation system of high accuracy. Course and altitude changes as well as switching commands are pre-programmed. During the landing approach, the aircraft is guided to the landing site fully automatically from the ground.
The missile meets the requirement for high landing accuracy by performing a vertical landing at a predetermined location by changing the tail geometry and pivoting the longitudinal axis of the missile by 90° as a rotary wing.
Premature discarding of the rudder section in which the payload is located enables rapid recovery. Processing and evaluation of the films. The guidance procedure during flight and landing cannot be interfered with.
Reconnaissance missions can be flown using standard reconnaissance sensors, such as side-looking airborne radar (SLAR), an aerial camera, infrared line scan (IRLS) and similar
equipment.
To shorten the response time, remote data transmission can be used for the SLAR and the IRLS device.
In designing the system, particular emphasis has been placed on easy handling, low maintenance and a low number of special personnel. The high degree of mobility and independence from the infrastructure allow a flexible range of applications. The system is therefore very easy to manage.

 

[Voltzz]

There is also a German Wikipedia article with more detail, however it is unsourced
Translation:

Dornier Do 33/KAD

Under the abbreviation KAD, Dornier operated an aerial reconnaissance system called Korps-Aufklärungs-Drohne from 1966 to 1970. Dornier received an order from the German Ministry of Defense in 1966 for a reconnaissance drone for battlefield surveillance and target acquisition in the area of an Army corps, i.e., up to 150 km in front of the forward edge of the defense. The user/operator was to be the Army, especially because the Air Force RF-104 intended for this purpose was only able to perform this task to a limited extent due to known problems. In addition, the Army considered the time between the overflight by the Air Force and the availability of the reconnaissance results at the Army (approx. 4 hours) to be far too long. Therefore, the drone was required to have day and night all-weather operational capability, evaluation of reconnaissance results immediately at the battery, and the ability to redeploy the drone one hour after returning from a mission. The project was cancelled when the Bundeswehr changed its concept, the Luftwaffe introduced the Phantom RF-4E and, as a "service" to the Army, also took over this reconnaissance mission.

Six batteries were planned, with each battery having six missiles and ground facilities for mission planning, launch, evaluation of reconnaissance results, and maintenance. The battery was to be capable of preparing a drone for a new launch within an hour of landing.

The flight system is on display today at the Dornier Museum in Friedrichshafen.

Description

During the concept and definition phase in 1966/1967, agreement was reached on a fast-flying drone powered by a General Electric jet engine that would fly at Mach 0.85 (up to 1000 km/h) in low-level flight at altitudes of 100 to 1000 m above ground. The flight path with outbound flight, reverse loop and return flight was to be 400 km and would have taken about half an hour. Takeoff was to be by booster from a gun carriage. To achieve accurate landing near the ground station, the drone was to land vertically with a rotor like a helicopter. For this purpose, three shortenable rotor blades on the rotatable tail section served as a tail unit in a stationary longitudinal position during cruise flight; for rotor flight during landing, they were rotated, extended telescopically and were propelled by the hot exhaust gases of the jet engine through 3 fold-out nozzles. The drone thus technically formed a drone-helicopter combination. In helicopter flight, the drone was to first deposit the sensor section at the battery's evaluation unit and then relocate to the repair and launch preparation unit to be prepared for the next mission.

Various sensor packages were scheduled to be installed/changed within ten minutes as needed, such as a line scan camera from Zeiss, an infrared line scanner from Hawker Siddeley, or a high-resolution side-looking airborne radar from Goodyear. The drone flew pre-programmed with an autopilot and could deliver reconnaissance results simultaneously to the ground station via a data link.

In January 1968, the main development began. A working model was built and the rotor in particular was extensively developed and tested.

Translated with DeepL

The article mentions that the drone is on display in the Dornier Museum but i cant find it on any pictures of the museum exhibits.
Also this is the only source for the designation Do33. In the Dornier Post its always just called KAD.

 

[Voltzz]

The article mentions that the drone is on display in the Dornier Museum but i cant find it on any pictures of the museum exhibits.

Found it!
Relatively small in the background of a larger image, but its still very recognizable.
Im not sure if the displayed drone is in its horizontal or vertical flight state, the rotors look somewhat shorter than in the image in the first post, but it looks like you can see the fold-out nozzles between the 3 rotors. That would mean its in the hover/vertical flight mode:

To achieve accurate landing near the ground station, the drone was to land vertically with a rotor like a helicopter. For this purpose, three shortenable rotor blades on the rotatable tail section served as a tail unit in a stationary longitudinal position during cruise flight; for rotor flight during landing, they were rotated, extended telescopically and were propelled by the hot exhaust gases of the jet engine through 3 fold-out nozzles. The drone thus technically formed a drone-helicopter combination.

The bottom/front looks significantly different from the image in my first post, i would guess this is because that image had the sensor section already detached as described in the wikipedia entry:

In helicopter flight, the drone was to first deposit the sensor section at the battery's evaluation unit and then relocate to the repair and launch preparation unit to be prepared for the next mission.

 

[TomS]

That is a fascinating gizmo. The telescoping rotor blades seem far too complicated for the job.

I'm not sure if the image return approach would have been fast enough to hit the kind of relocatable targets they wanted to hit, but perhaps? Probably the best they could do at the time.

 

[Scott Kenny]

That is a fascinating gizmo. The telescoping rotor blades seem far too complicated for the job.

I'm not sure if the image return approach would have been fast enough to hit the kind of relocatable targets they wanted to hit, but perhaps? Probably the best they could do at the time.

I think it was more for "what is the enemy planning on doing" than "where is the enemy so I can drop rounds on him"

 

[TomS]

I reread the articles and realized I misunderstood quite a lot. I was thinking it was Corps Artillery spotter, but not exactly. You're right that it was more for Corps frontal intelligence overall. And there was some sort of realtime datalink for some of the sensors after all.

 

[Voltzz]

Found it!

Found some more photos from different angles.
Its hard to judge the size but it seems to be roughly similar to the CL-289 on the ground.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Such a strange idea for recovery, but it does save you from having to repack parachutes. Or more likely, replace the parachute module that was pre-packed, and once you run out of parachute modules you're done.

 

[Voltzz]

However i can find very little information on it. There is only one article (from 1971) that describes it in some detail. The article has a unlabeled picture that fits the desciption of the KAD.

Found a somewhat higher quality version of this picture in a Wehrtechnik issue from 1971 here
The description confirms my guess that the image shows the drone with already detached sensor section.
Also according to the description the development had at this point already been cancelled after 70 million of 290 million DM budget had been spent.