SAAB 210 "Draken" ("Lill Draken") demonstrator

[Michel Van]

some short Translation from me

The Saab 210 "DRAKEN"

..put a new "all Time" (all Weather?) interceptor in a new format..

..the Saab 210 "DRAKEN" has double Delta wing..
..this curious machine has maiden flight December 1951
and made 700 fight without incident...
... the center of gravity can be modify during flight by pumping liquid in reservoirs
in nose and rear end of plane...

... the pilot has a ejection seat...
the (jet) engine is a Armstrong Siddeley Adder with 475 kg (trust?)
giving the DRAKEN a top speed of 600 km/h (372,8 miles/h)...

...it was design and build in 18 month (by SAAB) with help of
Sweden Ministry of Air, Institute of aerodynamic researches, Royal Institute of Technology
test fight made by B.R Olow

Note for several month the Aircraft nose were major modified
after the testflight

so the SAAB 210 DRAKEN i know look like that

nickname by pilot "Lildraken" (so wiki)

cant be that the AR french magazine show design study of DRAKEN and not real thing ?
or give a french Artis the order to draw one ?

 

[patvig]

In le Fana de l'Aviation HS 42, page 102, I found the demonstrator for the Saab J-35 Draken. Does anyone have some details about this plane ?

 

[Dew]

Lilldraken:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_210

 

[Stargazer]

Topics merged. Here's a few more pictures of the SAAB 210 (Draken was its official name).

Two configurations were tested: 210A and 210B. A sub-scale test-model is also shown.

 

[perttime]

According to SAAB's website:
"""
By developing the Saab 35 Draken, Saab made a bold move by choosing a double delta wing configuration.
Due to limited knowledge of this configuration, it was decided to build a special test-bed in order to improve the project safety. The experimental aircraft was scaled down to 70 percent of the planned size and was given the designation Saab 210 Lill-Draken. The intention was primarily to test the flight characteristics at low speeds and to test the assumptions made before undertaking full-scale construction. The maiden flight on 21 January 1952 was made by Bengt Olow.
The Saab 210 performed around 1,000 test flights over four years. The results provided valuable experience during development of the Saab 35 Draken.
Saab 210 is the first and only experimental aircraft to have been developed throughout Saab's history. Lill-Draken is now on display at the Air Force museum in Linköping, Sweden.
"""
http://www.saabgroup.com/en/About-Saab/Saab-History/Stories-of-Innovation/Saab-210-Lilldraken/

The Swedish Wikipedia page says that the official name was always Draken but people started calling it Lilldraken (little dragon) after the first SAAB 35 Draken prototype flew.

 

[hesham]

From Ailes 2/2/1952,

the SAAB-210.

 

[Motocar]

Cutaway Saab 210 and 210B Lill Draken

 

[Arjen]

Nice, but the 210's nosecone was not as voluminous as in the first drawing.

 

[hesham]

From Air Force magazine 1951,

what was this ?,and if it related to SAAB-210 or not ?.

 

[hesham]

From Flying 1956-6.

 

[blackkite]

Hi! SAAB 210A.
http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/xplane/saab210/

https://scale144.at.webry.info/upload/detail/137101645205113120090_a555e3bd8b.jpg.html

 

[blackkite]

SAAB 210B three side view drawing.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Hi

 

[blackkite]

Middle picture is mystery for me.

 

[blackkite]

What is this? Any relation to SAAB 210?

 

[riggerrob]

Reviewing the various versions, it looks like SAAB started a simple pitot style intake (ala. NAA F-100 Super Sabre). Pitot intakes are easier to design because you do not need to worry about turbulent boundary layer airflow.
Then SAAB added an internal radome (ala. MiG 21).
Then they cut back the engine intakes until the pilot had a good view downwards and to the sides.

 

[steelpillow]

There is a little bit of info about this little bit of a Draken in:
Jan Forsgren; "Database: Saab J 35 Draken", Aeroplane, May 2010. p.66.

The 210 nose started out as a kind of hybrid between twin-intake either side of a short nose, or single-intake with radome splitter. The weird boxy intake was probably tried later. Then it was more heavily modified to move the intakes back alongside the canopy and in this form was redesignated the 210 B. The original was retrospectively redesignated the 210 A.

Some comparative sizes from Wikipedia:
210: Length: 6.1 m (20 ft 0 in), Wingspan: 4.88 m (16 ft 0 in)
J 35 F Draken: Length: 15.35 m (50 ft 4 in), Wingspan: 9.42 m (30 ft 11 in)
That makes the 210 a 1/2-scale J 35 wing, but with a stubbier fuselage.

What is this? Any relation to SAAB 210?

It was Project Lx, dreamed up by Saab designer Sixten Sason as far back as 1941. It certainly shows many similarities to Erik Bratt's decade-later J 35 Draken, but whether Bratt and his team were influenced by it is probably not known. For more about it, see:
Lance Cole; "Sason's Secret Fighter", Aeroplane Monthly, August 1998. p.16-18.
Also has some nice pix of the 210.

 

[Dr.Snufflebug]

What is this? Any relation to SAAB 210?

Wow, that's wild and very late 1930's sounding. Twin turbojets, a booster rocket, braking rockets (!) and a built-in telescope for the pilot to spot distant targets ahead.

The reference to the Kammback is interesting too.

 

[UpForce]

It was Project Lx, dreamed up by Saab designer Sixten Sason as far back as 1941. It certainly shows many similarities to Erik Bratt's decade-later J 35 Draken, but whether Bratt and his team were influenced by it is probably not known. For more about it, see:
Lance Cole; "Sason's Secret Fighter", Aeroplane Monthly, August 1998. p.16-18.

To be clear, the drawing of the "Lx" is from 1998, is it not? Is there any original documentation left?

 

[steelpillow]

It was Project Lx, dreamed up by Saab designer Sixten Sason as far back as 1941. It certainly shows many similarities to Erik Bratt's decade-later J 35 Draken, but whether Bratt and his team were influenced by it is probably not known. For more about it, see:
Lance Cole; "Sason's Secret Fighter", Aeroplane Monthly, August 1998. p.16-18.

To be clear, the drawing of the "Lx" is from 1998, is it not? Is there any original documentation left?

No to the first and yes to the second. Clear enough? Cole reproduced the original 1941 drawing - complete with its original Swedish annotations, natch - in his 1998 article. This is unsurprising, as it is the subject of the article. He captioned it, 'Sixten Sason's prophetic 1941 "Project LX" drawing for a cranked-delta-wing interceptor...'. In the text he explains how Sason was one of the great Swedish designers, also being responsible for the famed Hasselblad camera among other things. Cole was researching Sason's "life and work" when he came across the drawing "in the company's archives". He offers a final anecdote supporting its attribution to Sason.
No doubt if you asked Saab nicely, as Cole did, they might let you see the drawing for yourself.
Make no mistake, this drawing is the biz.

 

[UpForce]

Make no mistake, this drawing is the biz.

It's the biz in so many ways. Makes me curious where and how Sason even got wind of turbines at that time (the form factor seems realistic but Whittle et. al.'s work remained really niche and also presumably shrouded in some secrecy), the history of ejection seats, etc. While it's impossible to deduce aerodynamics by just looking at something, there's not much obviously wrong with the shape; the intakes perhaps. The "kammback" thing made me smile as, at least to me, it's an automotive thing. Thank you.

 

[steelpillow]

It's the biz in so many ways. Makes me curious where and how Sason even got wind of turbines at that time (the form factor seems realistic but Whittle et. al.'s work remained really niche and also presumably shrouded in some secrecy), the history of ejection seats, etc. While it's impossible to deduce aerodynamics by just looking at something, there's not much obviously wrong with the shape; the intakes perhaps. The "kammback" thing made me smile as, at least to me, it's an automotive thing. Thank you.

Aeronautics was a very international community, for example Britain's G.T.R. Hill and Germany's Alexander Lippisch were travelling with their wives to each other's country and delivering lectures right up to the eve of war. And jet turbines had been experimented with and their implications discussed in papers and journals for many years. Everybody knew what everybody else was up to, bar the fine details. Sweden was a neutral and continued trading with Germany throughout WWII, it would have been surprising if Saab did not know the gist of what was going on.
The engine intakes are tucked underneath on either side of the pilot's feet, a good place for them. Boundary layer splitting would be essential, it is not clear if he knew about that. What I find most intriguing are the airflow arrows which show that he was aware of the sideways flow component and subsequent spiral or vortex pattern of air over a sharply-swept delta wing.
But it is not all wonderful. The design is quite complex in both aerodynamic and engineering terms and has some weird features which would not have worked. The blunt, unswept centre section would have high transonic drag and create directional instability. It houses a battery of internal nose-mounted rockets with their tube ends covered by a leading-edge slat that would have raised up Thunderbirds-style so the rockets could fire; the turbulence created when it was raised would create so much drag and instability that it would be impossible to do at supersonic speeds. And the undercarriage shows that he did not understand the need to get up flying speed in a horizontal attitude before rotating for takeoff.
Still, pretty darn good for 1941.
What's "Kammbak" in this context? I don't see it written on the drawing, am I missing something?

 

[UpForce]

Ah, historical minutiae has somewhat eluded me, names, dates, events seem to comfortably reside mostly in the more transient parts of my consciousness. Something of a regret, or rather a frustration, at times. It's a good thing, and somewhat amazing, then that such coherent ad hoc synopses as the above can be formed from such disparate threads of thought as mine. (The Wikipedia entry on Sason is hardly exhaustive.) Kudos.

I seem to have misread the placing of the intakes from the perspective drawing, on a second look they're obviously placed below the pilot, where you say. I also overlooked the airflow arrows, that is interesting - not sure how much thought Sason could've given to operating the jet in different speed regimes based on that image but displays knowledge nonetheless. The last I had something to do with controlling spanwise flow was with someone trying to get an underpowered foamboard F-4 to behave ... Kamm is mentioned in the drawing, there's a note towards the back end of the perspective with arrows pointing towards the rear of the fuselage and the trailing edge of the wing.

Bakändan tvärt avskuren (enl. Prof. Kamm) - Hind end transversely cut (according to Prof. Kamm)

I only know "kammback" from automotive aerodynamics; designers used to think that a gradually tapering shape (or cross-section) would "cut through the air" most efficiently (hence those flowing forms), not entirely appreciating just how shallow the angles should be for the flow to stay attached. Kamm figured out that at some point it's just less draggy (and enabling lighter structures to boot) to "cut" the shape abruptly at a certain point.

Not sure whether Sason appreciated here how much the flow around and over the rear might be affected by the exhaust gases "filling" the area.