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Still Mysteries with Fw.62 ?.
rlm-typenliste-firmenkurzzeichen-numerierungssystem-deutsche-flugzeugmuster
Various Focke-Wulf projects
- Thread starter Andreas Parsch
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rlm-typenliste-firmenkurzzeichen-numerierungssystem-deutsche-flugzeugmuster
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What's the mystery concerning the Fw 62?
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Sorry for that,but the rest are unknown designs,maybe a Projects ?.
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Early 1930s aircraft designs aren't really my field - but I felt reasonably confident that I knew what the Fw 62 was!
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Focke-Wulf Fw 62:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_62The Fw 62 was designed to the same requirement that was fulfilled by the Arado Ar 196. Not much of a mystery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_62The Fw 62 was designed to the same requirement that was fulfilled by the Arado Ar 196. Not much of a mystery.
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From Warplanes of the Second World War - Bombers and Reconnaissance Aircraft - Volume Nine by William Green, Macdonald 1967:
Kurt Tank - Konstrukteur und Testpilot bei Focke-Wulf by Wolfgang Wagner, Bernard & Graefe 1991 has a similar entry. No drawings in either book.
Much as it says in your text from Aerei Nella Storia 55.
Kurt Tank - Konstrukteur und Testpilot bei Focke-Wulf by Wolfgang Wagner, Bernard & Graefe 1991 has a similar entry. No drawings in either book.
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Looking through the GL meeting minutes from mid-late 1941 into early 1942, I can't find any reference to an Argus As 402-powered Fw 189 being planned for production. There's references to getting an MG 81 installed in the tail, references to an 'interesting proposal' regarding the use of Gnome-Rhone engines, questions as to whether the 189 is suitable for 'schraegeinbau' (what the Germans actually called 'Schraege Musik' during WW2) and a note from a meeting in Feb 1942 where the army asks when the 189 can be replaced by the 109 due to the former's inadequate speed and armour protection. Evidently there had just been some sort of 'fly-off' at Jueterbog, where the 189 was defeated by the 109 Aufklaerer. Nothing on an As 402 Fw 189 though.
It's possible that there was an Fw 189 G project, but I doubt it reached the stage where an order was placed for series production.
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My dear Dan,
what is your opinion in this Info from, Flugzeug Profile 49 - Fw 189 Uhu ?.
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In Hans-Peter Dabrowskis book "Focke-Wulf Nahaufklärer Fw 189A Uhu" a short paragraph about the
Fw 189 G can be found. A cut-out from a letter to the RLM is shown, too, with a comparison of the
attainable speeds with different engines, including the As 402, and comparing them to the Ha/Bv 141,
without mentioning a "Fw 189 G" nevertheless. That document is said to be from the 22nd of December
1939, when the Fw 189 was in contest with the Bv 141, which was considerably faster. So thoughts about
using the As 402 seem to have started much earlier, than 1941.
(chart from the mentioned book)
Fw 189 G can be found. A cut-out from a letter to the RLM is shown, too, with a comparison of the
attainable speeds with different engines, including the As 402, and comparing them to the Ha/Bv 141,
without mentioning a "Fw 189 G" nevertheless. That document is said to be from the 22nd of December
1939, when the Fw 189 was in contest with the Bv 141, which was considerably faster. So thoughts about
using the As 402 seem to have started much earlier, than 1941.
(chart from the mentioned book)
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Based on Dabrowski's book then, it would appear that an Fw 189 powered by two As 402s was planned but in 1939. As I said, I can find nothing in any of the GL reports to indicate that this design was either 1) Planned for production three years later - in 1942. 2) Called the Fw 189 G. The lettering of types was usually chronological, starting with A, then moving to B, followed by C etc. It seems unlikely to me that Focke-Wulf had already reached G by 1939. We don't appear to have any evidence that anything was called the Fw 189 G, let alone the design meant to be powered by two As 402s.
Then again, material on the Fw 189 is extremely sparse. Focke-Wulf's documents were captured largely intact and there is plenty of material on the Fw 190 etc. It's possible that the document assessors weeding out 'interesting' material from Focke-Wulf's archive were simply told that the 189 was of no interest and to earmark all the papers concerning it for destrution - with only a few slipping the net. As such, the history of the As 402-powered design seems likely to remain murky.
What is the As402? I haven't found anything on this engine other than the name.
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Dabrowski may have got that from William Green.
"A more radically modified development, the Fw 189G with a 950 h.p. Argus As 402 engines and a number of structural changes, was planned for production in 1942, but in the event the As 402 engine failed to attain production status, necessitating the abandoning of this project."
Warplanes of the Second World War, Bombers and Recce Aircraft, Vol. 9, Macdonald, Longon, 1967, page 58
Dan: You mentioned the As 402 in your coverage of the Arado E 380. In the drawing of the E 380-1, the As 402 looks like an air-cooled inverted V-12. Was that the case?
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The As 402 does appear on the drawing of the Arado E 380-1 of October 1942. It also appears as a powerplant option for the Arado E 310 twin-engine carrier aircraft of June 1939. Unfortunately, neither set of project documents describes what the As 402 actually is.
ArmchairSamurai
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Found these photos while searchin' for a better quality photo on the Fw 189 A-0. Never thought the Fw 189 would be considered for a ground-attack role. Makes me wonder, if not for the underpowered engines, how well it would perform in said role.
https://www.krulantiquarianbooks.nl...ursor=>&length=11670&id=9752211&submit=Search
https://www.krulantiquarianbooks.nl...ursor=>&length=11670&id=9752211&submit=Search
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The Fw189C close-support variant is fairly well-known. It was a two-seat competitor to the Hs129A. Both were hobbled by the specified Argus engines, which as you note, were nowhere near powerful enough to handle the required armor and armament. The Luftwaffe considered the Henschel airplane marginally more promising and had it re-engined with Gnome-Rhone radials as the the more familiar Hs129B series. But the French engines were still marginal. I believe that the Germans looked at various, possible replacement engines, including the Isotta-Fraschini Delta . But nothing came of it.
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athpilot
Fly me to the moon...
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The latest issue of Fluzeug Classic has a good article about the FW P 195, written by Herbert Ringlstetter (good artwork by Anastasios Polychronis). I won´t show it here because of copyrights. [issue No. 4_2022, p. 56-62]
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I've not read the article but the fact that Ringlstetter has called it the 'P 195' doesn't bode well. Focke-Wulf did not number its projects that way.
The designs in question were referred to by the company simply as 'Grosstransporter' and two different variants were outlined, one in Baubeschreibung Nr. 246 and the other in Baubeschreibung Nr. 249. I said just about everything that there is to say about these four years ago in my Luftwaffe: Secret Designs of the Third Reich bookazine.
Zizi6785
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Hi Dan,
When is the next bookazine coming?
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Working on my Me 262 development book at the moment.
It was originally planned as the third 'Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe' book after He 162 and BV 155 but it's turned into a bit of a monster. As seems to be the case with every German WW2 aircraft type I study extensively via primary source documents, the story that has emerged diverges somewhat from the 'accepted' history of it.
I was particularly intrigued by a video that a popular aviation history YouTuber put out in February 2021 entitled The 'Real' Reason(s) Why The Me 262 Had Bombs - with the thumbnail text 'No, bombs didn't delay the Me 262'. His argument was that the state of the Jumo 004 was what really prevented the Me 262 from entering service more rapidly.
I'd already been working on the book, on and off, for a couple of years by this point and I knew enough to know that the YouTuber in question was likely to be wrong. But if he was, what actually did delay the Me 262? And if I could find an acceptable answer, would I be able to conclusively demonstrate its veracity using primary sources?
Development started in mid-1938 and the first series production model Me 262s were accepted by the Luftwaffe in April 1944 (though actual military operations didn't get underway until mid-July). Was ~6 years an unreasonable development time for the world's first operational jet fighter? Spoiler warning, my conclusion is: yes it was. The Me 262 could, and perhaps should, have been put into service much sooner. I've looked in some detail at exactly what went wrong, and when.
There were a number of niggling questions I also wanted to answer. The glass nosed Me 262 bomber - why did that come about?
Were a whole bunch of late-war Me 262 prototypes redesignated as the second Me 262 V1, the second Me 262 V2 etc. If so, why? If not, how did that notion come about?
What actually happened to the BMW P 3302 engines fitted to the Me 262 V1 during its first jet flight? (Spoiler: It appears as though pilot error was responsible for their failure and the flight test report doesn't mention the use of the prop engine in bringing the aircraft back down).
Was the Me 262 A-1 actually the Me 262 A-1a? If so, when was the little 'a' added and why? Did the Germans actually use the little 'a' consistently? Or was the aircraft generally known as the 'A-1' without it?
Was there any difference at all between the Me 262 A-1 (or A-1a) and the A-2 (or A-2a)? If so, what was it?
Was the Me 262 x 2 Mistel combination a real project? And if so, was it given serious consideration?
I've tried to provide answers to all these questions and many more, while chronicling the development of the Me 262 as a continuous narrative - rather than 'boxing out' particular projects. This approach has yielded some noteworthy points. Did you, for example, realise that plans to fit the Me 262 with a high-calibre nose cannon can be traced back to August 1943? Or that the Me 262 HG III originally had circular engine intakes - and it's possible to pinpoint the exact date when Willy Messerschmitt personally insisted that they had to be oval instead? Or that three different Me 262 Panzerflugzeug designs were put forward at different times, and what each one consisted of? Clearly, I've already mentioned the Me 262 with M-wing elsewhere on this forum recently.
There's been a lot to discover and the book will cite the primary source material for each and every one of these discoveries.
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Zizi6785
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So the published date is not June 10, 2022.
It's a bit annoying from Mortons that they keep moving the release dates around.
I ordered Secret Projects Of The Luftwaffe In Profile Hardback edition over a year ago. They have changed the date at least three times.
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Well, that's my fault. I need time to write these things and... well... sometimes they take longer than expected to research and write. Part of the problem is the influx of new material. While I've been working on Me 262 I've been able to unearth a lot of documents - hundreds, possibly thousands (it's hard to give a definitive number because some 'documents' are actually collections of numerous shorter documents) - and getting through them all, piecing everything together, assessing the importance of particular points, comparing and contrasting different descriptions of the same thing from several perspectives - it's been immensely time-consuming. I only have so much time available for writing and when one project takes it all up, everything else has to wait unfortunately.
I should also add that I'm nearly done with writing this book. I've covered the period June 1938 to January 1945 (in about 120,000w) and I now just need to do February 1945 to April 1945. It'll have a new title, which I've not decided on yet.
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As a researcher/author/etc., I truly feel your pain, Dan. I'm STILL uncovering new data on the early B-24's for Volume II. The same goes for the book on the B-32 Dominator. The Dominator in particular is an aircraft that has not been well researched or all the materials hiding in various archives uncovered - although I will say I have done an exceptional job of finding things, including in files at NARA that it doesn't appear ANYONE has bothered to look at.
"Our" constituents have no idea what goes into the research alone, much less organizing it, editing it, choosing what matters and then writing it into coherent form.
Good luck with the book! I look forward to seeing it.
AlanG
"Our" constituents have no idea what goes into the research alone, much less organizing it, editing it, choosing what matters and then writing it into coherent form.
Good luck with the book! I look forward to seeing it.
AlanG
On 27 January 1945, the OKL published the Vorrückenprogramm for high performance night fighters, equipped with the new radar Telefunken FuG 222 Pauke S with parabolic antenna of 45 cm of diameter. It was installed INTERNALLY, within an aerodynamic container of di-electric material placed in the nose of the airplane. In this model, the scope was replaced by a Revi device equipped with a red filter that did not affect the night vision of the pilot. It was expected that the new night fighter would reach a maximum speed of 900 kph, with a service ceiling of 9,000 m and have an armament of four forward-firing MK 108/30 cannons.
The firm Arado presented the project E.583, a single seat flying wing powered by two HeS 011 A turbojets. The Dornier Project Office of Friedrichshafen designed a schlechtwetterjäger (all weather interceptor) driven by two DB 603 LA in-tandem piston engines. Based on the aerodynamics of the P.247/1, it was equipped with Bremen 0 radar, Schräge Musik and had a crew of two. It also had an unswept laminar flow wing originally designed by Heinkel for the Do.335 B-4, modified to reach the 16.44 m of span. The vertical tail surfaces were the same than those in the standard Do 435 and they used the horizontal surfaces originally designed for the Do 535. The project was presented to the RLM on 27 January 1945 as Do P.252/1 moskitojäger but its manufacturing was left aside in March 1945 in favour of the faster Messerschmitt Me 262 B-2.
By the end of 1944 the Heinkel engineers designed an advanced system of automatic triggering weapons combining the fire control radar FuG 222 Pauke S with the gyroscopic gunsight Askania EZ 42 Adler. The 1078 project was created to prove that the system could be integrated in single engine fighters, providing them with additional capacity to act as night fighter or moskitojäger controlled by the ground command by means of the FuG 25a and FuG 125a devices installed onboard.
The P.1078 A was very much like the Messerschmitt P.1101 with swept wings and tail surfaces. It had a small parabolic antenna fixed on the nose and two 30 mm cannons to both sides of the pilot. The P.1078 B had a twin boom type fuselage and a batwing like that of the Blohm und Voss P.209.01, chosen to diminish the compressibility buffeting effect and the roll damping at high speed. It was expected that the anhedral wingtips would perform the function of a tailplane. The radar, the armament and the nose leg were housed in the starboard fuselage and the cockpit, armoured but without ejector seat, positioned in the port fuselage.
The P.1078 B received strong criticism from the Technisches Amt due to the lack of protection of the fuel tanks and the asymmetric nose leg. The batwing was also considered inefficient during combat turns and it was feared that the shockwaves generated by the twin nose cones would interfere with the operation of the air intakes. The P.1078 project was cancelled on 27 February 1945.
The Heinkel P.1079 was originally conceived as the successor of the He 219. It followed the same working scheme that the P.1078: a classical airframe ‘A’ version and two flying-wing ‘B’ series with the same type of batwing than the previous project. By the end of February, the OKL added the requirement that the new fighter should include the FuG 244 radar which, together with the Schräge Musik guns and its ammunition, added 300 kg to the weight of the airplane. Heinkel preferred to continue working on a lighter version of Entwurf II without tailfin, a moskitojäger able to fly at more than 1,000 km/h with a ceiling of 12,900 m thanks to the new Heinkel HeS 011 engines. The flight control of a batwing airplane at high speed was above the technical capabilities of 1945. That was only achieved when having the Boeing computer controlled Bird of Prey in 1996.
Junkers presented an all-weather version of the EF.128 interceptor with the pilot and the radar operator sitting side-by-side.
Focke-Wulf proposed to modify its project P.0310.025-1006, that has originally been conceived as single seat high-altitude interceptor and able to fly and fight at an altitude superior to the Me 262 B-2a, with a great rhomboid wing and pusher airscrews aircraft, powered by a 4,000 hp Argus As 413 piston engine and armed with four guns of 30 mm. The plan considered a bad-weather moskitojäger two seat variant equipped with one FuG 222 radar and a 45-cm diameter parabolic mirror fixed in front of the radiator. Neither the Argus As 413 nor the Jumo 222 E/F, proposed as replacement, were available when Göring ordered to stop the development of any type of piston engine on 22 February 1945.
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0310 025-1006 is just a drawing number. That particular drawing was included in Focke-Wulf Kurzbaubeschreibung Nr. 16 Hochleistungsjaeger mit As 9-413 of October 3, 1944. This was tendered for the RLM's Hochleistungsjaeger requirement of July 21, 1944 (it says so in the project description).
There is no suggestion that this particular design was ever considered for production and it was never given an RLM code.
Armament was two MK 103s with 46 rounds each and two MG 213s with 125 rounds each.
A two-seater variant for bad weather operations was briefly mentioned as a possible eventual development but there is no detail as to what other equipment that might have had. Such a development (without mentioning any further details, such as specific equipment) had to be mentioned because it was a requirement of the July 21 specification.
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There was no P.195 or FW.249 either. Focke-Wulf did not use a 'P' project designation system.
There is no Focke-Wulf project beginning with a 'P'. None. Not even the well-known series of single-jet fighters. These each had their own Baubeschreibung or Kurzbaubeschreibung number. The misunderstanding arose from a report where they were all listed together in chronological order, and even then they are referred to as 1. Entwurf, 2. Entwurf, 3. Entwurf etc. That is not their name or designation - it's simply the order in which they were created - the 1st design, the 2nd design etc.
Unusually, perhaps uniquely among German WW2 aircraft manufacturers, graphs and tables often got their own identification number and these started with J.P. So for example, J.P.011-025 is a 'Kennblatt' for a TL-Jaeger with 39m2 wing area and HeS 011 engine, dated November 21, 1944.
There is no evidence for an RLM designation of 'Fw 249'. The Focke-Wulf Grosstransporter projects are covered comprehensively in my Luftwaffe: Secret Designs of the Third Reich bookazine of 2018.
There are two known Grosstransporter Baubeschreibunge - Nr. 246 and Nr. 249. These are not RLM designations - but they can be said to be internal company project designations.
As far as I can tell, all Grosstransporter project drawing numbers are 0310 215-XX.
I suppose if you double the 2 you get 0310 221-5X and if you double the 1 as well you get 0310 221-15.
On cursory inspection, I couldn't find any project drawings using the 0310 221-XX code.
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Regarding Focke-Wulf's naming of projects, this thread was started in July 2006 - 16 years ago - by @Andreas Parsch, in response to a post by @Meteorit who wrote:
He was almost completely right. I just would remove the 'consistent' and simply say that Focke-Wulf DID NOT USE a P.XXX/EF.XXX/E.XXX numbering system. At all.
Instead, most projects got a descriptive name and a Baubeschreibung or Kurzbaubeschreibung number. E.g. Kurzbaubeschreibung Nr. 16 Hochleistungsjaeger mit As 9-413.
The 'projects' which did not have this, such as the 1000x3 bombers, were often just designs intended to illustrate a concept or theoretical investigation. On these occasions, they were sometimes referred to using their drawing numbers - i.e. 'the bomber design in drawing number 0310 XXX-XXXX'. There was never a 'P.' in front of the drawing number. And the drawing number alone was never the 'name' of the project.
Incredible how, after all this time, those old incorrect books (and the websites that drew from them) still exert such an influence.
Meteorit said:Unlike the other German aircraft manufacturers, Focke-Wulf didn't use a consistent P.XXX/EF.XXX/E.XXX numbering system. Designations like Fw 249 were created post-war by aviation writers and should not be considered official RLM ones. (I have not had the courage to challenge Andreas about this matter so far.)
He was almost completely right. I just would remove the 'consistent' and simply say that Focke-Wulf DID NOT USE a P.XXX/EF.XXX/E.XXX numbering system. At all.
Instead, most projects got a descriptive name and a Baubeschreibung or Kurzbaubeschreibung number. E.g. Kurzbaubeschreibung Nr. 16 Hochleistungsjaeger mit As 9-413.
The 'projects' which did not have this, such as the 1000x3 bombers, were often just designs intended to illustrate a concept or theoretical investigation. On these occasions, they were sometimes referred to using their drawing numbers - i.e. 'the bomber design in drawing number 0310 XXX-XXXX'. There was never a 'P.' in front of the drawing number. And the drawing number alone was never the 'name' of the project.
Incredible how, after all this time, those old incorrect books (and the websites that drew from them) still exert such an influence.
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Thank you my dear Dan,
and of course I know that,but we must confess by this fact,which mentioned
in many sources,such as a books by Manfred Grieh,before the end WWII in
about two or three months,all design offices had burned their documents for
fear of falling into the hands of the Allied forces,so there is many designations
disappeared,andwe can't judge well about RLM system.
and of course I know that,but we must confess by this fact,which mentioned
in many sources,such as a books by Manfred Grieh,before the end WWII in
about two or three months,all design offices had burned their documents for
fear of falling into the hands of the Allied forces,so there is many designations
disappeared,andwe can't judge well about RLM system.
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That in itself is not true. The Allied forces appear to have captured most of Messerschmitt's, Focke-Wulf's, Arado's, Blohm & Voss's and Gotha's documents intact. Heinkel - very little was captured. Junkers - a lot of photo albums seem to have been captured but not design documents. Siebel - nothing. Fieseler - nothing. Henschel - nothing. We do have bits and pieces of Heinkel, Junkers, Siebel, Fieseler and Henschel from other sources but the bulk of their material appears to have been lost.
All together, the Allies captured an unknown total quantity of aviation-related documents. The only concrete figure I know of is 'more than 2,000 tons'. Of those 2,000+ tons, only 190 tons were kept. Some very odd bits and pieces seem to have made the cut and survived into those 190 tons, but it's clear that much of the older material was simply burned by the Allies. I'd say that 95% of what we have dates from 1943-45. And there's almost nothing from the 30s.
foiling
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Outstanding.
napobona
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Has this one been published anywhere yet? Dan teased in back in 2018.
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Sure. It's on p247 of my Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe Volume 1: Jet Fighters 1939-1945 book.
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