Blohm & Voss Nurflügel-TL-Jäger

[newsdeskdan]

Drawing number...

 

[hesham]

My dear Dan,

that means this designation was real Project,some sources suspected in it.

 

[newsdeskdan]

My dear Dan,

that means this designation was real Project,some sources suspected in it.

It depends on whether you regard a single drawing as a project. It's real but doesn't look exactly as it's depicted elsewhere - no armament. And the drawing shows how the undercarriage tucks up, two normal wheels at the front, two little ones at the back.
Sitting next to it in the Ae XXX sequence is a design that looks like a P 208 but with the propeller at the front!

 

[cluttonfred]

OK, I am missing something. Where is the rest of the drawing?

 

[newsdeskdan]

OK, I am missing something. Where is the rest of the drawing?

As with the previously unknown Arado night fighters I've mentioned elsewhere, and shown edited photos of, I'm not going to post the full clean complete drawing up online. But I figured people might be interested to learn that it is real and does exist. And that Ae 607 is a drawing number, not the proper designation of the design. And that the guy who drew it was called Thieme, and the date it was drawn was February 5, 1945. I questioned the design's authenticity in my Luftwaffe: Secret Jets of the Third Reich bookazine (though pulled up short of conclusively decrying it as a fake) but I can confirm that it is authentic and does not, as I previously suggested, belong in the pages of science fiction.
I realise that it's frustrating to only get the info box and not the full drawing but no doubt when it finally emerges someone will scan it and post it up.

 

[steelpillow]

Both drawings, Ae 605 depicting a front-engined "P 208 style" wind tunnel model and Ae 607 of a full-size Nurflügel TL-Jäger (flying-wing jet fighter) have now been published in Dan's new bookazine, "Luftwaffe: Secret Wings of the Third Reich."

These are drawing numbers, so in design terms the sequence means little. It is quite possible that two drawings of the same type would have non-sequential numbers, or that several types could be studied on a single drawing.

But I wish they could have been reproduced a bit bigger, besides the obvious benefit to the modeller, there is so much to be gleaned from things like drawing dates, signatures and scribbled notes. Dan's bookazines are crying out for hardback editions with bigger drawings!

And who was "Thieme", was he working in the preliminary design office under Hans Amtmann, or what?

 

[steelpillow]

What fascinates me about the Nurflügel-TL-Jäger is the telltale signs of how B&V were thinking hard about nose-up or high a-o-a flying attitudes. The old-style taildragger undercarriage was by now uncharacteristic of their designs, their jets had long moved on to the more suitable tricycle arrangement. Why go backwards?

The nose-up attitude would have generated high lift, allowing low takeoff and landing speeds. It would also have allowed high manoeuvrability in combat. But a plain delta in this condition is not easily controllable. The canard "moustache" (as such surfaces now tend to be called) would have created a predictable and stable vortex at high a-o-a, similar to that created by Concorde's ogee leading edge root, to stabilise and re-energise the airflow, both preventing stalling and maintaining the sensitivity to the control surfaces.

None of the designs by Lippisch and others show such sophisticated understanding of delta-wing stability and control at low speeds. So B&V were clearly putting a lot of original study into a practical delta warplane. Indeed, Lippisch always struggled with these low-speed issues and his Me 163 Komet suffered in this department.

But the HeS 011 was not an especially powerful engine so one wonders whether B&V were yet aware of the high drag which accompanies this flight regime.

 

[Wietze]

Hello to all,

I'm new here. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a luft 46 fighter to 3D CAD model with Autodesk Fusion. I really liked the Heinkel P1078c and the Blohm & Voss 'bats'. Soon my eye fell on the Ae607 drawing from Blohm & Voss. I found drawings on the internet, and then ended up buying Reichsdreams 15 (Bats) and a digital version of Dan Sharp his 'secret wings of the third reich' (2017) with a copy of the original Ae 607 drawing. The original is in my opinion, in detail, somewhat different than the blueprints of the Ae607 that are found on the internet.

Last weeks I made a 'quick and dirty' 3D mockup from all the measurements, calculations and redrawn 2D views...

Regards,

Wietze

 

[steelpillow]

Hi Wietze, and welcome. You have a fascinating project here.
Universal use of the drawing number Ae 607 shows that the original drawing published by Dan is the source for all others. Where later drawings or descriptions differ, they are simply wrong! Two of these later fantasies which you should ignore include rearranged undercarriage and any armament fit.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Speculative landing gear drawings

 

[Wietze]

I'm wondering where the original drawing is located and if there's more information on the designer Thieme and this plane than just the drawing of the 5th of february 1945. Is there anyone with more information? What archive is this drawing from?

 

[Justo Miranda]

Speculative drawing by myself...no additional info.

 

[steelpillow]

Dan Sharp rediscovered the drawing in an archive he has been trawling for his Luftwaffe series of bookazines, confirming earlier unsourced German accounts of its existence and also correcting some speculation arising from those. The German copy presumably resides in some private collection. This drawing is the only known source. I am hoping that Dan will reveal which archive (there are only a handful of possibilities) when he updates and publishes his findings in book form. It is also the only reference we know of to Thieme, who evidently worked in the B&V aircraft design office in some capacity. The drawing must really be seen as a speculative research study rather than a bona fide project proposal. At best it might have resulted in a wind tunnel model along similar lines (as was intended for a drawing a couple of steps away in the numbering), had the research been pursued.

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Speculative landing gear drawings

Why are the main gear so long - there is no prop arc to account for? Just curious.....

Enjoy the Day! Mark

 

[riggerrob]

Speculative landing gear drawings

Why are the main gear so long - there is no prop arc to account for? Just curious.....

Enjoy the Day! Mark

Good point Mark,
Justo’s drawing is pretty good.
Deltas tend to take-off and land at a shallower angle of attack. The lighter deltas have their landing gear fixed at the best angle for take-off and landing.
Look at the modern Verhees Delta for an example.
Otherwise, I thank Justo for sharing his research and I hope that Santa Claus delivers “Panic Fighters” on Christmas Eve.
Happy Holidays to all!

 

[steelpillow]

Speculative landing gear drawings

Why are the main gear so long - there is no prop arc to account for? Just curious.....

The wheel positions are shown on the original drawing, so only Justo's legs are speculative (nothing personal, Justo!). Other designers have used such a sharp nose-up ground attitude to give the plane plenty of lift at low speeds, so as to reduce the takeoff speed and distance required. Because of the aerodynamic inefficiency and consequent high drag this brings as speed builds up, it requires either a lightweight research airframe (such as the Vought V-173) or powerful engines (such as the follow-up Vought XF-5U). We do not know what Thieme intended, they might have had other ideas entirely.

 

[Justo Miranda]

I have a new source: NASM Archives-Microfilm R 4097 (5 February 1945)

 

[edwest4]

Thank you very much Justo. The date on the drawings is 1992, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. The page number on the right is 853 (!).

 

[Wietze]

Thank you Justo. Interesting !

 

[newsdeskdan]

The only source for the drawing - and there is only one original drawing - is indeed ADRC/T-2 4097. Although Paul Malmassari rediscovered the drawing and published his redrawn version of it in a French magazine in 1996, David Masters also had a version of the drawing in his 1982 book German Jet Genesis. I asked David where he got the drawing from and he told me that it came from Heinz J. Nowarra (I presume that's the drawing on p853, Justo - David says 'hi' btw!). Why Malmassari didn't just print the original drawing is unclear. I did ask him but he stopped replying to my emails at that point.
Although the Ae 607 drawing is dated February 5, 1945, the bundle of assorted papers it comes from range in date between January 21, 1943 to March 28, 1945. Very few of the sheets actually have what you might call 'good' drawings on - most are graphs, fragments of reports on various aircraft types or component drawings. The lowest Ae number is Ae 500/2 and the highest is Ae 620/1. Nothing else in the file relates to the design on Ae 607.
It's not entirely correct to say that Ae 607 is a drawing number either - it's actually more like a sheet number. I've attached Ae 608 and Ae 601 to this post so you can see what I mean. It's possible that the Ae numbers relate to a particular collection of sheets. So there might have been several Ae 607s, each with a different drawing, graph or page of text on, each in a different collection.

 

[Wietze]

Thanks for the information ! Seems to be just a single original drawing then. Not easy to draw a whole 3D plan on that information alone... Some blanks to fill in. Nice works by Justo and others by the way !

The NACA airfoil profiles (Ae608/1) are of the 0012 series (00 for the symetric profile). Looks like they are investigating what operating differences there are for the point of maximum thickness (12%) on the chord (30%, 40% or 55%). judging by the original drawing (from Dan's book) I think the Ae607 drawing puts it on 40% of the chord for that plane.

Just like the wings of the Lippisch DM-1 / P13a had it on 40% of the chord. Although that has a thickness of 15%. Looks like an 0015-64 (or a modern NACA 642-015A), but in Langley reports they say that the DM-1 had airfoils similar to the 0015-64. I found the reports yesterday in the digital library of the university of North Texas. https://digital.library.unt.edu/search/?q=DM-1&t=fulltext&sort=

 

[newsdeskdan]

Incidentally, here is a better version of Malmassari's 1996 article. There was a third page which showed a painting of three 'Ae 607s' banking away from the viewer which Malmassari had painted himself and dated 1993. So presumably he rediscovered the drawing in 1992 or 1993.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Also worthy of note is the fact that Manfred Griehl included the 'Ae 607' in his 1998 book Jet Planes of the Third Reich The Secret Projects Volume One, but wrote the caption: "A provisional general arrangement drawing of an unusual design, purported to have originated with the Blohm & Voss firm. First illustrated in the mid 1960s, its authenticity has never been proven." Seeing this, Malmassari wrote to Griehl with a copy of the same drawing I included in my Luftwaffe: Secret Wings bookazine, and in Volume Two of his Jet Planes of the Third Reich two-book series, Griehl wrote a nice little reply (see attached - 'postscript' paragraph).

 

[steelpillow]

David Masters also had a version of the drawing in his 1982 book German Jet Genesis. I asked David where he got the drawing from and he told me that it came from Heinz J. Nowarra (I presume that's the drawing on p853, Justo - David says 'hi' btw!

...

It's not entirely correct to say that Ae 607 is a drawing number either - it's actually more like a sheet number. I've attached Ae 608 and Ae 601 to this post so you can see what I mean. It's possible that the Ae numbers relate to a particular collection of sheets. So there might have been several Ae 607s, each with a different drawing, graph or page of text on, each in a different collection.

There has been speculation on this forum that David Masters was a pseudonym and that he was an unknown quantity. It is reassuring to know that he is still around after all these years. If you get the chance, please pass on one reader's excitement at finding his German Jet Genesis on the shelves, all those years ago.

The sheets you include to illustrate the Ae system are in fact Ae 601/1 and Ae 608/1. This indicates that each is intended as the first in a potential series of sheets or pages numbered (say) Ae 601/2, Ae 601/3 and so on. One is diagrammatic graphs, the other plain text. This makes it clear that the base Ae XXX number designator is more akin to a technical study ID than either a single sheet on the one hand or a design project on the other. The first sheet in such a study might not be given its /1 suffix unless a /2 sheet were created, and even then sloppy practice might still leave it off. Or conversely, it might be given its /1 but /2 never materialised. In the case of the Ae 607, the sheet is clearly identified as Zeichnung Nr. Ae 607, Blattz 1. Literally "Drawing No. Ae 607, Sheet 1", which, in shorthand, would be written Ae 607/1. In such a system, say a text commentary might well be identified as "drawing" No. Ae 607/2 so that the master copy would be kept with the Sheet 1 master. Or at least, this has been the practice in every drawing and design office I ever worked in/with. So I have fair confidence that the three-view drawing was the initial document or sheet in a technical study which might or might not have accrued subsequent bits of paper.

 

[newsdeskdan]

David Masters also had a version of the drawing in his 1982 book German Jet Genesis. I asked David where he got the drawing from and he told me that it came from Heinz J. Nowarra (I presume that's the drawing on p853, Justo - David says 'hi' btw!

...

It's not entirely correct to say that Ae 607 is a drawing number either - it's actually more like a sheet number. I've attached Ae 608 and Ae 601 to this post so you can see what I mean. It's possible that the Ae numbers relate to a particular collection of sheets. So there might have been several Ae 607s, each with a different drawing, graph or page of text on, each in a different collection.

There has been speculation on this forum that David Masters was a pseudonym and that he was an unknown quantity. It is reassuring to know that he is still around after all these years. If you get the chance, please pass on one reader's excitement at finding his German Jet Genesis on the shelves, all those years ago.

The sheets you include to illustrate the Ae system are in fact Ae 601/1 and Ae 608/1. This indicates that each is intended as the first in a potential series of sheets or pages numbered (say) Ae 601/2, Ae 601/3 and so on. One is diagrammatic graphs, the other plain text. This makes it clear that the base Ae XXX number designator is more akin to a technical study ID than either a single sheet on the one hand or a design project on the other. The first sheet in such a study might not be given its /1 suffix unless a /2 sheet were created, and even then sloppy practice might still leave it off. Or conversely, it might be given its /1 but /2 never materialised. In the case of the Ae 607, the sheet is clearly identified as Zeichnung Nr. Ae 607, Seite 1. Literally "Drawing No. Ae 607, Sheet 1", which, in shorthand, would be written Ae 607/1. In such a system, say a text commentary might well be identified as "drawing" No. Ae 607/2 so that the master copy would be kept with the Sheet 1 master. Or at least, this has been the practice in every drawing and design office I ever worked in/with. So I have fair confidence that the three-view drawing was the initial document or sheet in a technical study which might or might not have accrued subsequent bits of paper.

I did wonder whether David Masters was a real person. Then one day I received a letter from him. It turns out that the main reason it's been so hard to find him (I tried Jane's, the publisher of German Jet Genesis, but they had no remaining information from their early 1980s book publishing days) is because he generally refers to himself as Dave Masters. Apparently Jane's insisted that he had to be 'David' so he went along with it but has always been known as Dave. He generally writes about classic motorcycles and has actually written many pieces for Mortons titles. He told me that his interest in German secret projects began in 1960 when he got hold of 20 old issues of the Air Training Corps magazine dating from the immediate postwar period which included articles about them. He put the book together based on these articles, other postwar articles and a single contemporary report - the famous German Aircraft: New and Projected Types from January 1946. As you've said elsewhere, I think, German Jet Genesis holds up well in some areas despite the lack of primary source material. Dave was a pioneer and is a thoroughly nice chap to boot. I'll pass on your good wishes when I next speak to him.
Regarding the Ae series, none of the drawings on 4097 have /1 on them. They're all single sheets. Some of the drawings even look identical but get different Ae numbers. There is only one Ae 607 but many graphs, charts and text pages do fall under a single Ae number. Looking through my other B&V files, some full reports do include Ae sheets - for example the technical data pages of the report on the P 150 (from 1941) are Ae 325/1 to Ae 325/10. The rest of the report, including the drawings, is entirely without Ae numbers. Some B&V sheets (many posted elsewhere on this forum by kiradog, for example) have AeM numbers.
In any case, here are the Ae sheets present on ADRC/T-2 4097 (numbers written as they appear on the sheets - duplicates are where one or more copies of the same sheet appear on the microfilm reel):
Ae 620/1
Ae 620/2
Ae 618
Ae 615
Ae 613/1
Ae 613/2
Ae 612
Ae 611/1
Ae 611/2
Ae 610
Ae 609/1
Ae 609/2
Ae 608/1
Ae 607
Ae 605
Ae 602
Ae 601/1
Ae 601/2
Ae 601/3
Ae 601/4
Ae 601/5
Ae 601/6
Ae 601/7
Ae 601/8
Ae 601/9
Ae 601/10
Ae 601/11
Ae 601/12
Ae 601/13
Ae 601/14
Ae 601/15
Ae 601/16
Ae 600
Ae 599/2
Ae 599/1
Ae 598
Ae 597
Ae 595/1
Ae 595/1
Ae 595/1
Ae 595/2
Ae 595/3
Ae 595/4
Ae 595/5
Ae 595/6
Ae 591
Ae 590
Ae 589
Ae 588
Ae 587
Ae 586
Ae 585/1
Ae 585/2
Ae 585/3
Ae 585/4
Ae 585/5
Ae 583
Ae 582/1
Ae 582/2
Ae 582/3
Ae 582/4
Ae 582/5
Ae 582/6
Ae 582/7
Ae 582/8
Ae 580/1
Ae 580/2
Ae 580/3
Ae 579
Ae 578/1
Ae 578/2
Ae 577/1
Ae 577/2
Ae 577/3
Ae 577/4
Ae 577/4a
Ae 575/10
Ae 575/8
Ae 572
Ae 571
Ae 570
Ae 569
Ae 568
Ae 567/1
Ae 567/2
Ae 567/3
Ae 567/4
Ae 566
Ae 565
Ae 564
Ae 563
Ae 562
Ae 562-04
Ae 562-03
Ae 562-02
Ae 562-05
Ae 562-01
Ae 560
Ae 559/2
Ae 558
Ae 557/1
Ae 557/2
Ae 557/3
Ae 557/4
Ae 557/5
Ae 556
Ae 555
Ae 553/2
Ae 553/1
Ae 552/1
Ae 552/2
Ae 552/1
Ae 552/2
Ae 550
Ae 549/03 H03
Ae 549-03 H02
Ae 549-03 H01
Ae 549-03
Ae 549-02
Ae 549-01
Ae 549
Ae 549-0322
Ae 549-0302
Ae 549-0301
Ae 549-03 H02
Ae 549 H03
Ae 549-03 H01
Ae 549-03
Ae 549-0201
Ae 549-02
Ae 549-01
Ae 548
Ae 548 (again)
Ae 548 (again)
Ae 547/1
Ae 547/2
Ae 547/3
Ae 547/4
Ae 547/5
Ae 547/6
Ae 547/7
Ae 547/8
Ae 547/9
Ae 547/10
Ae 546
Ae 545/1
Ae 545/2
Ae 544/1
Ae 544/2
Ae 543/1
Ae 542/2
Ae 542/2
Ae 542/1
Ae 541/2
Ae 541/1
Ae 540
Ae 539
Ae 538/5
Ae 538/3
Ae 538/4
Ae 538/2
Ae 538
Ae 536
Ae 536
Ae 535 Seite 1
Ae 535 Seite 2
Ae 534
Ae 533-1
Ae 533-2
Ae 533
Ae 532/1
Ae 532/2
Ae 532/3
Ae 537
Ae 529-7
Ae 529-6
Ae 529-4
Ae 529-5
Ae 529-2
Ae 529
Ae 528
Ae 527
Ae 526
Ae 525
Ae 525
Ae 524
Ae 523/1a
Ae 523/2a
Ae 522/1
Ae 522/2
Ae 520
Ae 519
Ae 519
Ae 519)
Ae 518-1
Ae 518-2
Ae 518-3
Ae 517/2
Ae 517/1
Ae 516/2
Ae 516/1
Ae 515/1
Ae 515/2
Ae 515/2a
Ae 515/3
Ae 515/4
Ae 515/3
Ae 515/2
Ae 515/1
Ae 514-4
Ae 514-3
Ae 514-2
Ae 514-1
Ae 513
Ae 511
Ae 510/1a
Ae 510/2a
Ae 509
Ae 509
Ae 508-1b
Ae 508-1a
Ae 508/1
Ae 507.7
Ae 507.6
Ae 507.5
Ae 507.4
Ae 507.2
Ae 507.1
Ae 506/1
Ae 506/2
Ae 506/4
Ae 506/3
Ae 505-1.4a
Ae 505-1.2a
Ae 505-1.4a
Ae 505-1.2a
Ae 505-1.2
Ae 505-1.3
Ae 505-1.4
Ae 505-1.1
Ae 505-1
Ae 504/2
Ae 504/1
Ae 503/1
Ae 503/2
Ae 503/3
Ae 502-9
Ae 502-8
Ae 501-H02
Ae 501-H05
Ae 501-H04
Ae 501-H03
Ae 501-H01
Ae 501
Ae 501
Ae 501-24
Ae 501-15
Ae 501-14
Ae 501-13
Ae 501-12
Ae 501-11
Ae 501-09
Ae 501-10
Ae 501-09
Ae 501-90
Ae 501-H05
Ae 501-H03
Ae 501-H02
Ae 501-H01
Ae 501-07 -08
Ae 501-05
Ae 501-03
Ae 501-06
Ae 501-04
Ae 501-02
Ae 501-01
Ae 501 Blatt 2
Ae 501 Blatt 1
Ae 500/4
Ae 500/3
Ae 500/2
Ae 580/3

 

[Justo Miranda]

Hi

 

[steelpillow]

Dave Masters ... generally writes about classic motorcycles

I wonder if he knows anything about the very early Levis models, especially the engine designs? There is a Levis five-cylinder inline aero engine dating from ca. 1914 on display in the Science Museum and a record elsewhere of a Levis twin-cylinder aero engine from 1912. Both were built for the Belmont Aeroplane Co. belonging to Messrs. James and Thompson. But I wonder whether there were ever any others? Levis company records at the National Motorcycle Museum go back only to the start of WWI.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Dave Masters ... generally writes about classic motorcycles

I wonder if he knows anything about the very early Levis models, especially the engine designs? There is a Levis five-cylinder inline aero engine dating from ca. 1914 on display in the Science Museum and a record elsewhere of a Levis twin-cylinder aero engine from 1912. Both were built for the Belmont Aeroplane Co. belonging to Messrs. James and Thompson. But I wonder whether there were ever any others? Levis company records at the National Motorcycle Museum go back only to the start of WWI.

Ha - no idea! Modern motorcycles are more my thing. You could always email James Robinson, editor of The Classic Motorcycle magazine. He's one of the leading authorities on very old motorcycles and Dave Masters writes for him.