German Aircraft Projects

Site Issues 2005 Archive Room
#1

Quote from www.luft64.com :
During WWII, German aircraft designers put forth many aircraft project ideas, which ranged from the
practical to the bizarre. Some of these ideas were ahead of their time and reached a more advanced
design stage, and even affect aircraft today. Within the pages of Luft '46 you will find descriptions of
these aircraft projects, illustrated with three-view drawings, model photos and custom color artwork…

check this!:

FW TA 283

This ramjet-powered fighter had along, pointed nose and the cockpit was faired in to the large vertical fin. It was to be powered by a Walter HWK rocket engine for take-off and two Pabst ramjets once operating speed was reached. The wings were mounted low on the fuselage and were swept back at 45 degrees. The ramjets were located on the tips of the sharply swept tailplanes to avoid any disturbance of the airflow. The aircraft sat very low on a retractable nose wheel undercarriage. Armament was to be two MK 108 30mm cannon.



I SAW IN A TOPIC THIS AIRCRAFT:

Focke-Wulf VTOL Project
the aircraft. They rotated in opposite directions, thus canceling out torque problems. At low speeds, control was achieved by varying power to each propeller. Power was to be provided by an unnamed turbojet, and forward propulsion was brought about by sending exhaust through a nozzle located on both trailing edges. The landing gear was very simple, consisting of two main gear legs on either side of the center propellers, and a small tail wheel. A single fin and rudder was provided to help with lateral stability at higher speeds. The single pilot sat in a cockpit nacelle that protruded from the front of the aerofoil section fuselage.
Nothing ever came of this very interesting project…



EDIT:
MORE INFO AT:
http://www.luft46.com/

#2

Problem is, these are all “paper” aeroplanes. The only aircraft of this type that was ultimately built (the Pulqui II, built by Kurt Tank in Argentina) turned out to be a complete dog that killed one of the test pilots. I see no reason why any of these suggested aircraft should be any different, and some very obvious problems (like, how does the TA283 land? It can’t come in under power due to the nature of ramjets, but has very short wings and high wing sweep so will have horrible low speed handling).

#3

this projects were obviously different from normal aircrafts,the germans were vinculated to unconventional war,they wanted to have revolutionary technlogy (and they had it in some units)

the TA283 had propultion from the bottom,but it still difficult to land,and to fly!.

these projects were interesting,but they aren`t easy to put in practice,some of them really inutile,but the nazi scientist always wanted to break the limits of technlogy.

and,do you have some info about pulquiII???

#4

Nothing in particular you wouldn’t get from google without much trouble. It was pretty much a clone of the Ta. 183, which many people have claimed was copied by the US and Russians to make the F-86 and MiG-15.
This is why the Pulqui II is so useful - Tank went to Argentina and built the Pulqui as a slightly developed Ta. 183 (with a much better engine than would have been available to him in wartime). The aircraft was a total dog, killing one of the test pilots during the very short test programme before it was abandoned.
That’s the major point about the “secret” German projects at the end of WW2 - they were all total dead ends. About the only concepts of any use that the Allies took from Germany in 1945 were to do with the V-2, and even then the Russians were actually much more advanced in many areas.I do get very fed up with all the people who think these German projects were massively advanced, when in fact they were largely technological dead ends that were greatly outclassed by all the Allied powers.

#5

wow,i see.

thanks for the info!

#6

Hitler was also so arrogant about the early successes of Germany in the war that he cancelled many projects that could not make it from drawing board to battlefield in under a year. He figured that Germany would have the war won in less that 12 months and time and materials spent on long-range projects were a waste of resources. This was true of AA guns, strategic bombers, anti-tank weapons, and infantry weapons and not just planes. This policy was overturned when things started to go sour for Germany. Imagine if the 262’s could have been ready a year earlier and been used as a fighter (Hitler wanted them equipped as a fighter/bomber). They would have ravaged US daylight raids and inflicted huge casualties in 1942 or 1943 had Hitler not diverted resources from their manufacture.

#7

Err… no. Even when they were used, they were fighting for survival against the (piston engined) escort fighters, and had they been brought into the war the allied jets would have seen action too. Since these were actually better designs, with far more suitable cannon and incomparably better engines, it’s hard to see what advantage the Germans would have gained long-term.

#8

…if they had them in 41 or 42 (pre Merlin Mustangs) the Germans would have stopped the daylight bombing campaign and probably won the Battle of Britain.

While the Brit jet (Meteor) were comparable, early US jets (Bell(?)) were not.

If the daylight raids were halted, German production of the 262 and other jets and weapons systems and tanks and so on would have increased even more (They increased despite the bombing campaign during the course of the war.)

#9

Not a chance of German Jets in 41/42 - they still had massive engineering problems to solve that money alone wouldn’t touch. Even had the whole thing been given “crash programme” status (i.e. almost up there with the Manhattan project) you’re looking at summer 1944 for large scale use. Remember the whole “can it carry bombs” saga didn’t happen until winter of 1943/44 - and prior to this the aircraft wasn’t getting much priority because it was frankly rubbish, and didn’t at the time show much promise. The first Me-262 to use jets alone didn’t fly until July 1942, and performance at the time was dangerously low (that’s dangerous from a flight safety point of view, let alone a combat one!).
If you’re into summer 1944, then the RAF have significant numbers of Meteors that they can divert to the continent if needed, and the USAF have very large numbers of Merlin Mustangs and Thunderbolts they can use. By this time it’s too late for Germany to win the war barring an act of God.

As for the Allied Jets, the Meteor was superior as a fighter (far better/more reliable engines, and far more suitable cannon), as was the Vampire (flying in prototype form by the end of the war). While the P-59 Airacomet was nothing to write home about, it was largely an experimental aircraft to get a better understanding of jet aircraft. The P-80 however (in service and on the way to Europe by VE-day) was a superb aircraft, easily the equal of any fighter on earth.

#10

…that you can have your opinion and I can have mine. And since it;s all conjecture, we’ll never know who is right and who is wrong.

#11

Errr… no, it isn’t conjecture. The engineering problems are facts - I have an MEng principally specialising in Gas Turbines (most of the rest was on Aerodynamics), and have done quite a lot of reading up on the technical stuff, so have some idea of what I’m talking about.
The German jets were bad designs, cobbled together from sub-standard materials (they even used Aluminium in the turbine section!) that could not be improved upon postwar - the Russians put quite a bit of effort into it, with vastly improved metallurgy, and couldn’t make much of an improvement to the MTBF.
Unike history (your degree), engineering deals in verifiable facts that can only be interpreted in one way. The timings are a little more arguable, but are largely limited by resource constraints - and the number of competent engineers who could work on Jet engines at this time in Germany was very limited. I’d personally argue that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel anyway.
Bring up all the “what ifs” you like, but the awkward facts still remain.

#12

If Hitler hadn’t pooped on the special projects early in the war the 262 with all its flaws would have been flying sooner and in greater numbers. That’s a fact. Once again Herr Blunderer gets his egomaniacal nose where it doesn;t belonfg and GB and the Allies reap the benefits.

Talk all you want about bad engineering. The Sherman was horribly engineered as were some early Brit tanks. But the sheer numbers mattered. We’re not even getting into jet fuel issues with Germany and that’s another card.

#13

If that’s the level of reasoned debate that you used to gain your BA, then I suggest it was the same college where IRONMAN studied philosophy. Why pick fights so soon after joining? Any valid points you’ve made on the above post are obscured by the general abusive tone you start and finish with. This benefits no one, least of all you.

#14

Please try to read the post before replying.

I was holding fire on this thread as it goes. I had not stated my opinion. I’m not pdf. Reply to what was posted, not what you hoped was posted. However, now seems like a good enough time to post my opinion. That is, neither of those designs are viable with 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and probably even 80s tech. The Ramjet has the most potential, but as pdf has already pointed out, there is a great difficulty with landing it. That’s not the only difficulty. I suspect that the VTOL design would require a flight control computer with some serious control-law design to render it flyable. You are then looking at fairly modern avionics to achieve this.

The offensive nature of your previous post was due to the sarcastic and dismissive tone adopted in parts. I suggested that as a History BA, you should be able to put your points across far better than you had done, and were thus missing an opportunity to contribute beyond that achieved to date.

#15

zero tolerance toward offensive message or any message that could lead of flame war, edit post to keep thing clean

#16

The difference is the Sherman wasn’t likely to crash and kill the pilot shortly after takeoff. That was the condition of the early German jets through 1941/42 and IIRC right through 1943 as well. They could have mass produced them, but it wouldn’t have done them any good - the casualties due to technical problems would be far higher than what they were then suffering due to Allied action.

Edit - 1941/42 sounds more plausible than 1941/21!

#17

OK, now get back to the topic!
bigmac1197 please try to edit your posts!! Either I’m afraid I will edit for you!!! :x :x

#18

The cousins…

FW-Ta-183:

Lavochkin La-15

…and FMA IA-33 Pulqui II:

#19

The 2nd generation German jet aircraft designs have for the most part been vindicated by every country that built actual production aircraft from them. The basic WW 2-eraGerman aero designs are evident in modern contemporary designs also. They all hark back to guys like Lippisch and Multhopp. There are many, many more including manned V-2-type craft and space shuttle-style out of atmosphere bombers. We owe our aircraft industry success and moon program to “our” Germans that joined us after WW 2.

German jets were not bad. No one had more 500MPH plus experience in aircraft than the Germans from 1938 on when the Me 163 hit 623MPH in 1941. Simply because jet turbines were not long lived at that particular point in their evolution does not damn any entire aircraft. The next geration Heinkel and BMWs were in prototype stage when the war ended. The BMW 028 turbo-props were cloned and ultimately used on the Soviet Tu-95 “Bear.”

Both the He 280 and the Me 262 flew in 1941! And doesn’t everyone know the main reason the 262 was not put into production in 1942 was that Hitler figured the war would soon be over? There were no production or quality problems other than Hitler manipulating production into making 262 bombers instead of interceptors.

Everyone agrees that even given more jets it would have delayed the Allied victory not changed it. But had 262s been available in numbers 18-24 months earlier the air war would have played out differently. Hell the Americans almost quit daylight operations in 1943 after Schweinfurt and a couple other costly missions against prop-driven Luftwaffe craft. Only the debut of the Mustang saved the day.

To dismiss Germany’s entire jet aircraft indusrty out of hand is a mistake now and was nearly a fatal mistake during the war.

#20

BS. The only aircraft design built roughly according to the German WW2 designs was the IAI Pulqui, built by Kurt Tank in Argentina to the Ta-183 design. As mentioned before, the aircraft was a complete and utter dog and the Argentines abandoned it as soon as they realised how bad it was.

Nope - the features you’re thinking of (presumably swept wings - I can’t think of any other relevant features offhand - feel free to quote them if you can) were well known about prewar. The only reason they were not used in the war by the allies is that they are associated with some vicious aerodynamic problems which don’t have easy fixes and are only useful in the region above 600 mph. The only wartime German aircraft to operate in that regime were the Me-163 and -263 series, which didn’t stay there for long and to all accounts weren’t terribly nice at high speed. The Me-262 had wing sweep to deal with a CofG problem caused by metallurgical problems in the turbine section of it’s engines, not due to speed, and the wing section was in any case too thick.

Less than you might think. The V-2 had surprisingly little in common with later rockets (remeber from the V-2 to space took around 13 years and a hell of a lot of work). As for the “Silverbird” aircraft you seem to be referring to, that was never more than a pipe dream and even with modern engineering techniques looks horribly impractical. Back then it was a complete joke.

The engines themselves were awful and complete technological dead ends. The best the Germans could ever get them to do was 20 hours before they disintegrated, while the Russians (with better quality parts and massively better metallurgy) could only manage about 100 hours with the same engines - the design itself was horribly flawed. The power output was another major issue - the wartime jet engines could never get above 2,000lbs st. thrust, while the “next generation” engines that were designed to reach 4,000lbs st. thrust simply didn’t work. That isn’t just wartime time problems - the Russians tried for quite some time postwar to get them to work and simply couldn’t. That’s one of the reason the “Nazi Superfighters” were doomed from the start - they would never have had suitable engines!
It is worth noting that every single jet engine built postwar is designed around the principles articulated by Whittle and Griffith. The US and Russian engines are all based on their work, not on any captured German technology.

Well, apart from the fact that the engines had a lifespan of 20 hours or so - still, that was less than the life expectancy of the pilot so was not regarded as a major problem.

Little minor details here - like the first jets to reach squadron service being with the RAF, the development state of the aircraft at the time, etc. It just isn’t going to happen like that in reality.