Blohm & Voss outboard tail projects (origins and descendants)

negoshi8or

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Hey guys,

Does anyone have info on Blohm und Voss pusher projects – especially the P.208 series?
I know of the luft46 page and have already got my hands on the following references:

Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Fighters 1939 -1945
Lufthart International 15 – June 1976
Chronik eines Flugzeugwerkes 1932-1945 Blohm & Voss Hamburg - Hamburger Flugzeugbau GmbH ed2 1982
Typenbuch - Flugzeuge von HFB (Blohm & Voss) - ca. 1970 (waiting for the postman)
Reichdream Dossier 15: Batwings

Any help would be appreciated!

Negoshi8or.
 
Hi negoshi8or

You seem to have the same refs as I have.

I did a few profiles a little while ago on site in:
Flitzer's WW2 German Secret Project Profiles - Page 2.

One is of the prop pusher version.
The other is as B&V originally intended with jet engine, just to see what it might have looked like.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Cheers
Peter
 
Thank you for that Flitzer - I assumed that you would know I already have your great artwork!
 
Does anyone know if Dr Richard Vogt’s memoirs has any information relevant to the P.208?
(http://www.aero-verlag.de/?navi=details&id=6929)

I am about to order it and so would feel happier if it did!

Thanks in advance,

Negoshi8or
 
I should have paid more attention to my german classes in high school :(...any chance that thre is an english translated version?
 
Hi AeroFranz,

As far as I have researched, no :-(

Scanning German texts to PDF, then OCR, and then using google or microsoft translator does an ok job - with a little editing of course!

Negoshi8or
 
I'm pretty sure we have a topic on the Bv P 208 somewhere, but since I couldn't find it, I'm sharing this here.

In his Naval Postgraduate School thesis "Analysis of a semi-tailless aircraft design", Kurt W. Muller creates a CGI model of the Bv P 208.

He also shows how the Bv P 208 served as a basis for studies by John Kentfield of the University of Calgary on what he calls the outboard-horizontal-stabilizer (OHS) configuration.

The OHS configuration was then used by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites on their Model 287 Alliance ERAST subscale demonstrator (but also on Rutan's Scaled Model 233, the tilt-body Freewing Scorpion UAV).

From these two designs, it's easy to understand how Rutan interpolated the SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo designs... which therefore owe a great deal to an obscure Nazi jet fighter project!!

I have made the following diagram to better show the design evolution (I unfortunately do not have a plan view of the Model 287 but you can learn a little more about it on my website here: http://stargazer2006.online.fr/unmanned/pages/alliance.htm).

The thesis can be downloaded from this page: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA402729
 

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What is the story behind the tailless projects of Blohm und Voss?

Their chief designer during this period was Richard Vogt.

Projects are said to have included:
  • BV P.208 pusher prop fighter proposal
  • BV P.209.01 variant of the turbojet-powered P.209 proposal
  • BV P.210.01 variant of the turbojet-powered P.210 proposal
  • BV P.212 turbojet entry in the 1-TL Jäger fighter programme, three prototypes said to have been under construction.
  • BV P.214 turbojet bomber-rammer propsal. (Designation is also attributed to a conventional-tailed Mistel type design)
  • BV P.215 twin turbojet night fighter proposal
  • BV Ae 607 turbojet-powered delta study, This appears to be an unofficial or preliminary study by Stöckel.
Who was the driving force behind these studies - Vogt, Stöckel, or someone else? Where was this guy coming from?

There are some wonderful graphics of at least some of these in Miranda and Mercado's Reichdreams #15 "Bats". How much historical detail is included with them?
 
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My dear Steelpillow,

that needs a time,I will figure out.
 
Interesting question.
But since most of these projects already have topics on this forum covering their development, perhaps some elements of answer are there already?
 
I had a look through but could find very little history here, mostly just images. Besides this site, my main sources are: David Masters, German Jet Genesis, Jane's 1982 and Dan Sharp, Luftwaffe: Secret Jets of the Third Reich, Mortons 2015. Sharp is the best I have found, but still very skimpy.

Considering the British captured the B&V works and brought many of their drawings back, and the Tailless Aircraft Advisory Committee sent people out to interview captured German engineers at various sites, I am surprised that I have not yet been able to find anything relevant. I must take some time out to track down all their reports.
 
I'm not a German aviation specialist, but I'm sure there will be more knowledgeable members to shed some light on the subject.

Meanwhile, and though not exactly an answer to your question, have you seen this post? Those wonderful projects may have been influential in several postwar designs:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8428.msg253558.html#msg253558
 
Skyblazer said:
Meanwhile, and though not exactly an answer to your question, have you seen this post? Those wonderful projects may have been influential in several postwar designs:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8428.msg253558.html#msg253558
Thank you. It links to a paper which has several interesting references to follow up.
 
Thank you. May I compliment you on a well-written piece of work.

I think it would have been common enough for the senior designer to shield his juniors from officialdom and politics, both internally at board level and externally with the ministries, and do all the talking himself. Whether Voght continued the practice with the British out of habit or some other motive is probably moot. (as an aside, I wonder why he was allowed to go to America and not given a job at Farnborough like several others).

Yes, German tailless research was an industry-wide effort with Lippisch being merely the tip of the iceberg. But I have never seen a precedent for that trick of slipping a boom in between the wing main section and tip so that the moment arm of the "outboard tail" is kept high but the wing sweep is moderated. Somebody must have been the first to come up with the idea before B&V adopted it for the earlier P.208 pusher-propeller design (what B&V refer to as the "Otto" type, which is the German name for the four-stroke piston engine). And somebody must have thought it promising enough to pursue through several further jet projects, despite the obvious structural issues.

The Ae 607 delta project is a sensible way round those structural issues but it has such odd features I wonder at its authenticity. Its "catfish" whiskers and the steep angle of repose on the ground suggest a high A-o-A and the use of vortex lift on takeoff, allowing a relatively slow airspeed much after the manner of Concorde. This was an issue which both the British and Americans took decades to get to grips with, so on that basis it seems unlikely to have been familiar to Voght and/or his staff at the time of their interrogation. On the plus side, the outboard tail is best sited in the wing tip vortex and so the B&V staff would probably have had some understanding borne of that research. I think I'll sit on the fence for a while, there.
 
Brilliant! What does it say inside? :D Where can I get a copy? ;D
In most of the large organizations I have worked in, that signature on the front would have signified the design chief's formal approval, irrespective of who wrote the brochure itself. We lower-caste Dilberts were usually only allowed to sign things we shared with the pointy-haired manager (or his dog). The expressive "paperwork" in the document you show us suggests that B&V were of this ilk. The only giveaway would be a passing "Who's that on the distribution list?" More than once, such lists have led me to the pot of gold when no other clue was available.
Is there a distribution list? B)
 
Thanks. Where is it held? The National Aerospace Library at Farnborough or the National Archives at Kew, at a guess?
 
B & W's tailless work on the 'arrow wing' (SL-6, P.208 etc) has been attributed to ''Dr Vogt and his Head of Aerodynamics, George Haag" in many books and websites. The source is

Cowin, Hugh W., “Blohm und Voss Projects of World War II,” Air Pictorial, pp.312- 316, October, 1963.

Which seems to have been repeated in various publications; however, a reader's reply in a subsequent issue of Air Pictorial by the former Chief of Preliminary Design at Blohm und Voss, Hans H. Araimann(? - given in Google OCR as "Hans H. Arai- mann, Santa Ic, Calif., U.S.A"), stated that 'Mr. Haag was Design Group Engineer in charge of the wing group; Chief of Aerodynamics was Mr. Richard Schubert.'

(I don't have either issue - information gleaned from Google Book Search)

Interest in this shape apparently developed over two years: SL-6 test flights in Summer 1944 proved promising, leading to various P.208 designs in August 1944.

Luftfahrt International 15 (I have it) has a detailed article on P.208 including many wind tunnel photos and original documents (in German)
Luftfahrt International 5 (I don't have it) has an article on the P.212.
 
From postwar report "German Aircraft Industry-Bremen-Hamburg Area" http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADB198053

...
Dr. Ing. Richard Vogt

Speaks fluent English, also French and Japanese. One of the leading aircraft designers in Germany, in charge of aircraft design for Blohm & Voss for about 12 years. Prior to this, spent 11 years in Japan, helping to organize the Japanese aircraft industry, during which time he designed a number of
Japanese aircraft.
...
...
Georg Haag

This man speaks excellent English, having worked for a total of 7 years with various Aircraft Companies in the U.S., including Fokker, General Aviation Corporation and Fairchild Aircraft Corporation.
...

From personal observation and from interrogation
of the above personnel, this team secured the
following information about the projects listed.

B & V 212 Jet Propelled Fighter (Project only).
Also known as 211 and 213. About the end of 1944,
Dr.Vogt submitted some designs to the Air Ministry for
a single seater single jet fighter, but received no
order.

B & V 215 3-seater 2 Jet Fighter. Following up
some work on the project of the 212 single seat single
jet fighter, Blohm and Voss did some work on a 3-seater
to use 2 jet engines (Hirth), known by them as a bad
weather and night fighter. The competition for such
design was won by Blohm & Voss and they got a verbal
order, but it never materialized further.

All available engineering information on the
above models B & V 212 and B & V 215 Jet Fighters,
as well as information on the Hirth jet engines is
contained in data secured by this team, boxed and
marked for shipment to the U.K.
 
The boom and outboard tail was resurrected in the early 1960s by Vought for their ADAM - the ADAM report even mentions Blohm and Voss by name (while claiming NACA and Chance Vought had both studied outboard tails before B&V). '

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14098
 

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Thanks all. I note that Paul in fact suggested that Schubert had a hand in it too:

Richard Vogt - design head
|
Richard Schubert - aerodynamics head
|
George Haag - wing design head

I suppose the Škoda-Kauba is a kind of pseudo-precedent, as it was the first in the development stream. One of those links cites Flying Review international, November 1965. I wonder if it has any illustrations.
 
Some info here
 

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Thanks, Justo. If it is not a rude question, what is the source provenance for these data?
 
Sources
 

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Thank you! One day I shall be rich and famous and be able to buy all these wonderful books and have them translated for me....
 
I would pursue that objective very much. I already am rich and famous and it is very dissapointing.
Yachts, girls, Ferraris........ are overvalued ;)
 
Offtopic, but...

Vought appear to have been referring to the outboard all-moving tailplane fitted to the V-173 as 'their' precedent. The Vought ADAM, changed from T-tail to outboard tail from 1960, followed a number of NACA/NASA studies from 1957 onwards which tested the Blohm & Voss inspired outboard tail design as a possible solution to wing/tail blanking effects.

Then, of course, there was the 1980s P.1216.

Haven't located the Wright Field designs which allegedly predated the B&V designs though.
 

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PaulMM (Overscan) said:
... the Wright Field designs which allegedly predated the B&V designs ...

Not at all off-topic, my dear Paul. I am all agog! Who alleges, where, what, etc. etc.?
 
Not sure where to flag this up.

The topic I started has been merged with this one. However the title has a mistake: the word is "outboard" not "outbound" (whether guided or unguided :eek: or even a sly reference to the final shot in the film "Serenity" B).)
 
steelpillow said:
PaulMM (Overscan) said:
... the Wright Field designs which allegedly predated the B&V designs ...

Not at all off-topic, my dear Paul. I am all agog! Who alleges, where, what, etc. etc.?

Perhaps we're not giving Vogt enough credit. Have a look at this 1922 NACA report, which mentions him on its second page in the same breath as Lippisch as a pioneer of aircraft design.
http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1922/naca-tm-140.pdf
Incidentally, NACA appears to have produced dozens upon dozens of reports on tailless aircraft throughout the 1930s, most of which don't seem to be available via Cranfield's archive.
 
The linked NACA document is a translation of an article from a German journal. Lippisch would go on to design both tailed and tailless gliders. There is nothing here as such to connect the article or Vogt to tailless design. What is interesting is the close watch on German theoretical work by the Americans and the early impact on the field, in 1922, of both Lippisch and Vogt.

Curtiss was certainly keen on tailless aircraft, perhaps there is a researcher - an American Hill or Lippisch - to be unearthed, or perhaps all those tailless "reports" will similarly turn out to be tracking German progress, Vogt's included. Either way, they are worth tracking down.
 
steelpillow said:
The linked NACA document is a translation of an article from a German journal. Lippisch would go on to design both tailed and tailless gliders. There is nothing here as such to connect the article or Vogt to tailless design. What is interesting is the close watch on German theoretical work by the Americans and the early impact on the field, in 1922, of both Lippisch and Vogt.

Curtiss was certainly keen on tailless aircraft, perhaps there is a researcher - an American Hill or Lippisch - to be unearthed, or perhaps all those tailless "reports" will similarly turn out to be tracking German progress, Vogt's included. Either way, they are worth tracking down.

My apologies, I explained myself poorly. The document was intended to demonstrate Vogt's form as an innovator, rather than to link him directly to tailless design. B+V's portfolio during his tenure as design chief suggests, I think, that he was willing to choose whichever configuration he felt would best achieve the desired performance - tailless or otherwise. He could therefore be the man behind the P 208, in my view.
 
There is an uncited Internet meme (on Wikipeda and Luft46 among other places, and also in a few gee-whizz type books) that even though the P.212 lost out in the competition, three prototypes were ordered nonetheless. Does anybody know the source of this story and if there is any truth in it?
 
steelpillow said:
There is an uncited Internet meme (on Wikipeda and Luft46 among other places, and also in a few gee-whizz type books) that even though the P.212 lost out in the competition, three prototypes were ordered nonetheless. Does anybody know the source of this story and if there is any truth in it?

According to Schick & Meyer (1997) the TLR under Ulrich Diesing wanted a development contract awarded - but also mentions that no decision had been reached by the last official meeting prior to the end of the war. So, no and no? Maybe?
 
Thanks. I'll assume it's somebody's over-active imagination unless and until I discover otherwise. Shame really, I'd love it to be true.
 
steelpillow said:
Thanks. I'll assume it's somebody's over-active imagination unless and until I discover otherwise. Shame really, I'd love it to be true.

I don't see why! A final decision against producing it hadn't been made. Furthermore, in reality, there was no chance for any of these projects to be completed.
 
By the way:

Does anyone know of estimates for the take-off speed for the Blohm und Voss P.215?
 
Update after having got hold of:
  • Hans Amtmann; "Blohm und Voss Remembered", Aeroplane Monthly; Part 1, February 1998, pp.22-27; Part 2, March 1998, pp.12-15.
  • Hermann Pohlmann; Chronik eines Flugzeugwerkes, B&V 1932-1945 ("Chronicle of an Aircraft Manufacturer"), Motorbuch Verlag 1977.
  • Zdenek Titz and Jaroslav Zazvonil; "Kauba's Dwarfs", Flying Review International, Nov 1965, pp.169-172.
Amtmann was Vogt's head of new projects almost from the word go and, like Vogt, was swept up in the aftermath of war under Operation Paperclip and given a new career in the USA. Pohlmann joined the company during the war as Vogt's deputy, to relieve some of the pressures on him. When the Blohm brothers were eventually allowed to resurrect the aircraft division, also known as Hamburger Flugzeugbau (HFB), after the war, Pohlmann rejoined it. These two sources are therefore eyewitness accounts by key members of Vogt's team.
Dan Sharp's bookazine, Luftwaffe: Secret Jets of the Third Reich, is nearly as good a source, being culled from original documents. Taken together, these sources support the following observations:

The order for three machines was received not for the P.212 but, in the last weeks of the war, for the P.215. Detail design or planning had scarcely begun, if at all, before the war ended. Certainly, no metal was cut.

The Ae 607 delta is at best a red herring, it has zero provenance as far as B&V are concerned. [UPDATE: Now verified after all, as an unofficial drawing: see subsequent posts]

Verifiable projects included:
  • Škoda-Kauba SK SL6. This proof-of concept prototype did fly. A modified SK V6, it did not however have a swept wing, instead having the tail surfaces mounted on extra-long wingtip booms.
  • BV P.208 pusher prop fighter proposal.
  • BV P.209.01 unofficial study. Early variant of the more conventional turbojet-powered P.209 proposal.
  • BV P.210 unofficial study. Modified P.209.01.*
  • BV P.212 turbojet entry in the 1-TL Jäger fighter competition.
  • BV P.215 twin turbojet night fighter project. Three prototypes ordered just weeks before the war ended.
* There may also have been a more conventional turbojet-powered P.210.02 proposal and a BV P.214 turbojet interceptor proposal. There is no evidence in these sources to support the P.210.02 or the P.214. While they are mentioned by David Masters in his German Jet Genesis, he does not give his own sources so they cannot be verified.

Sorry, no takeoff speed given for the P.215.
 
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I guess you could take a crack at takeoff speed assuming that it's 1.2 x stall speed, with stall speed being

Vstall = square_root( (2 x weight)/(density x max lift coefficient x wing area))

of course this means that you must assume a maximum trimmed lift coefficient. Probably no more than 1.5, i can't remember what lift devices the aircraft had. I think you can find decent estimates of wing area and takeoff weight, and assume sea level density.
 
Thanks for checking. Given its power-to-weight ratio, I doubt takeoff would've been satisfactory - but it would've been interesting to find out more.

I might try using XFLR5 or a similar solution to attempt an estimate of the takeoff and landing speed of the design. I think the airfoil is well documented. I'm not sure what the takeoff flaps would've been set to though.
 
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