Now that is awesome!!!
Why would the Germans fly to the Cape Town Area?! Does a trip like that make sense to anybody here?
I´ve had the oppotunity to look at a globe: The straight line distance from Bodø (where a Ju 390 is said to have been spotted latewar in Swedish colours, you remember) to Paraguay is about 11000km and flying from central Germany makes little difference. To be theoretically possible the Ju 390 would extra fuel (and would be able to carry a few empty-pocketed nazi´s only).
snebold have you considered about the fact that the Ju 290 had successful trials with in flight-refueling. So why not the Ju-390? This may explain somethings.
Fool, your RC+DA picture is a well known fake.
…and your evidence that it’s a fake is what ?
Now, If you might know why do I say it is bull? South Africa was under the rule of the UK and if the Germans Came near the southern part of Africa they would have had a lot of sh*t. Now we are talking about a aircraft so they would have been intercepted for sure.
So HG presumably you have evidence of standing fighter patrols off Cape Town ?
And if you’re saying that there were such patrols are you in fact saying that it was not implausible, because for there to be such a fighter screen there would have to be a perceived real risk to keep such a standing force ?
For someone of the English language I would like to say that you sir are a real @rshole and if you were maybe lightly smart enough you would have dealt with it in a another way.
I find when dealing with people with closed minds and fanatical views, for example who claim photos are faked, but can’t provide evidence of an alternative original donor photo, very little else penetrates.
You would think wouldn’t you that for someone to have altered a donor photo to create RC+DA there would first have to be a fairly widely known picture of that aircraft in exactly the same pose with GH+UK markings and in fact there is no authentic photo of GH+UK in that pose.
Were someone to now attempt a hoax by photo shopping the RC+DA picture then they would have to surmount another hurdle that the two aircraft are entirely un alike in many other dimensional respects too.
I have a question for you cynics. How long can an Ostrich hold it’s breath with it’s head in the sand. I figure you guys might know ?
Why would the Germans fly to the Cape Town Area?! Does a trip like that make sense to anybody here?
Not surprised snebold. Seems very little make sense to you.
So this well known and well recorded flight, which was discussed in newspaper interviews with it’s pilot since 1968, never before disputed all of sudden becomes untrue because it does not fit your prejudices ?
Hans Pancherz was the project pilot for the Ju-390.
You cynics clamour for proof and then when you get some you find any excuse under the sun to dismiss it.
SS Obergruppenfuhrer Sporrenberg, Dr Voss and SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Rudolf Schuster (SS-WVHA Amt-V zbV) all independently of one another testified after the war to the flight from Schweidnitz near Breslau to Bodo.
The departure flight to Argentina may well have been from the 2000 metre runway of the SS controlled Gardermoen airfield near Oslo following a short ferry flight from Bodo. After the war 40 plus He-177 bombers were found there according to a newspaper report in readiness for operations against USA.
For this to be a faked photo you’d think the alleged photoshopper would be bright enough to actually start with a donor photo of the same aircraft wouldn’t you ?
Indeed the Junkers records reveal that the V1 and V2 aircraft had two different lengths and that is precisely what this photo shows
Well, now I have to mod.
I’d like to ask that you guys keep this discussion on topic and refrain from personal attacks…
Just asking, for now…
Horst Zoeller of the Hugo Junkers website told me in 2005 about a BV222 flight to Sakhalin.
The BV222V1 route considered after June 1941 was from Kirkenes to Sakhalin Island then Tokyo. Subsequently the Air base at Nautsi in Finland was selected. Japan at first agreed but later objected because of Soviet overflight.
From 1942 Japan objected to overflights of the Soviet Union by Luftwaffe aircraft so subsequent connecting flights were made by aircraft in DLH registrations.
Former Deutsche Luft Hansa pilot Luftwaffe Flugkapitan Rudolf Mayr was placed in charge of the Manchurian flight operation.
Trial flights began with Ju-290A-5 werke # J900170 Luftwaffe code KR+LA. It adopted a civil code for DLH operations to Ninghsia, China. This aircraft also had KG200 codes 9V+DH and was destroyed by air raids at Reichlin in 1945. It’s fuel capacity was increased and for long range operations, MTOW was increased from the Ju-290’s standard 41.3 tons to 45 tons.
It was likely this aircraft which made a first trial flight to Manchuria from Odessa. Odessa was abandoned 10 April 1944 in the 6th Army’s retreat from a Soviet offensive begun on 24 December 1944 reaching Kirov Rog 22 February 1944. Kiev was abandoned 6th November 44.
Any flight to Manchuria from Odessa could not have happened after March 1944 and it happens Rudolf Mayr was appointed to create trial flights about February 1944. Ju-290s were regularly making landings in Kazakhstan to drop fifth columnists in 1944.
In March 1944 three other Ju290 aircraft were converted for flights to China. These were Ju-290A-9, werke # J900183 Luftwaffe code KR+LN. From February 1944 this aircraft became T9+VK. It was attacked on the ground at Finsterwalde in April 1944 and scrapped at Travenmunde in September 1944.
Also Ju-290A-9 werke # J900182 Luftwaffe code KR+LN. From February 1944 this aircraft became T9+UK. This aircraft was lost whilst on the ground refueling to straffing fire by four Soviet flown Hurricanes near the village of Utta, near Astrakhan.
Ju-290 A7 werke # J900185 Luftwaffe code KR+LP was the third conversion to become T9+WK. It was attacked over the southern eastern front in May 1944 and returned from the mission beyond hope of repair.
In December 1944 Ju-290A-3 werke # J900163 Luftwaffe code PI+PQ was converted for a mission to China to carry VIP Ulrich Kessler, but work on the aircraft was interrupted by Allied air raids and the aircraft was blown up in May 1945 to prevent capture.
According to Junkers company records there appears to have been flights to Ninghsia (Ningxia) from Bulgaria. Departures were most likely from Burgas on the Black Sea coast. Prior to the war a french company built an extra long runway there for long range flights.
Japan would not have objected to civil flights from Bulgaria because up until 5 September 1944 the country was nominally neutral maintaining diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
The Ju-290 had a range of approximately 3,800nm. The distance from Burgas to Ninghsia is about 3,500nm. Modifications made to provide extra fuel tanks for the above mentioned aircraft gave a range of about 4,200nm so the distance was not impossible for a Ju-290.
There is evidence for Ju-290 flights from Bulgaria from April up until September 1944. There are Russian claims of a Ju-390 flight to Tokyo on 28 February 1945 corroborated by Albert Speer and Wolfgang Hirschfeld in their books.
Sorry I shall refrain… I give as good as I get but I accept it’s unseemly.
You can respond, and I’m not singling anyone out.
I’m just saying, asking. Please keep it civil, like men…
The most obvious part is the DA Marking, where the A is bigger than the D (which is rather odd considering the letters should have the same size and the A is further away). The letters should also have the same vanishing point than the wing they’re on, which they don’t, theirs is actually in the opposite direction.
The iron cross looks like a digital calculation of a flat one into the suppossedly correct solid angle (hence the hiccup in the x-axis). I’d run the whole image through an image processing software to check for digital fragments, but I don’t own one. It would most likely find plenty of mistakes which elude the human eye.
And what would the practical purpose of a Cape Town flight be?
Try suggesting something instead of calling it prejusticed to ask such a question.
kiwiguy, do you know how many man hours it took to make the ju-390 or the 290 at least? and how many poeple worked on it?
Don’t ASK Nickdfresh…just do it!..such nasty personal attacks are not tolerable, especially against Walter. Do your Mod stuff nick…You do it!.Do it!
kiwiguy, do you know how many man hours it took to make the ju-390 or the 290 at least? and how many people worked on it?
Yeah I do have a fair idea. Components for the Ju-390/290 were produced by the Letov plant in Czechoslovakia by massed slave labour there under SS control of Dr Hans Kammler.
This man was said to have ordered the machine gunning of 2,000 concentration camp victims at Mittlewerk tunnels.
From July 1944 Sonderkommando Nebel was created to concentrate on the production of Me-264 long range aircraft. This organisation required 388 staff.
Ju-390V1 was constructed at Merkersberg by modification of an existing aiframe of Ju-90 V6 in mid 1943.
Ju-390V2 built under the same RLM contract (for 3 prototypes) was converted from the existing Ju-90V9 airframe. It was it’s first flown from Bernberge in August 1943, flown by Hans Werner Lerche.
Because their construction was basically just the insertion of new centre wingspans and the insertion of extra fuselage sections, the amount of work to build Ju-390s was much less than the effort to build one Me-264 and the Germans set aside sufficient material to build three Me-264.
As for the reason to fly as far as Cape Town, Major Herman Fischer of FAGr.5 was actually obliged by requests from Doenitz to perform numerous long range reconnaissance missions for U-boat intelligence collection.
Also in 1993 the Argentine Economic Ministry revealed classified wartime records that regular use was being made by german aircraft of Palomar airfield and that this involved trade between Germany and Argentina.
These are just two potential reasons. As I understand it the pilot who flew these missions still lives in Barcelona and often gives interviews so why not ask him ?
For the record I have never subscribed to a belief that Hitler escaped from Berlin in 1945. On the other hand had he wished to escape it was feasible.
James P O’Donnell interviewed key characters from Hitler’s bunker immediately after the war. O’Donnell made a point of tracing 250 survivors of Hitler’s Bunker after the war and interviewed 100 of the most important ones. He recounted in his book “The Berlin Bunker” pub 1979, ISBN 0-340-04402-8 interviews with Reichsminister Albert Speer and Hitler’s pilot Hans Baur about Speer’s departure from Berlin.
On Sunday 29 April 1945 seven couriers left Hitler’s Bunker (Fuhrer Haupt Quarter), SS Col Wilhelm Zander (Bormann’s aide), Heinz Lorenz Propaganda Min, Wehrmacht Maj Wili Johanmier (with Corpl Hummerich), Maj Freytag von Loringhoven (Kreb’s aide), Haupt Gerhard Boldt (von Loringhoven’s aide), LtCol Weiss (Burgdorf’s aide) and Luftwaffe Col. von Below (with Corpl Heinz Matthiesing). Zander & Lorenz had instructions to deliver Hitler’s last will and testament to Donitz at Plon to the north.
The standard, perhaps misleading account, is that these couriers all escaped 50 miles on foot through Russian lines along the Havel river to the Elbe, but astonishingly in his book O’Donnell (p.213n) said that the last of these seven couriers to leave, Col von Below, flew from Berlin on 29 April 1945."
Count von Below actually had orders from Hitler to fly south and have Goering arrested and the astonishing thing is that von Below actually did this. A number of Bv138 flying boats of KG200 are now known to have landed at Tiegel See northwest of Tiegel Airfield and to have evacuated senior Nazis from an island in that lake. This much is not fiction.
I am also aware that Haupt Ernst Koenig in 2004 told British newspapers that he had been ordered on 1 May 1945 to prepare a Bv222 for an evacuation flight to Greenland with VIP Nazis from Berlin.
In his book O’Donnell cited Speer saying that Baur had serious plans to fly Hitler out on 23, 28 and 29 April 1945 (P.251). He also quoted Baur himself after the war saying “right up to the last day I could have flown the Fuhrer anywhere in the world”. Hitler however was determined to stay and commit suicide.
I still do not accept Hitler escaped… But it was feasible.
The Ju-390 evolved from the Ju-290 which in turn evolved from the Ju-90.
What not many people realise is that the Ju-290 was based upon the EF-53 four engined airliner project of 1940 for an airliner capable of flying to USA. That project directly led to the conversion of a Ju-90 aircraft V11 into the Ju-290 prototype with the lengthening of it’s Ju-90 fuselage.
In 1942 RLM invited Junkers to resurrect the EF-53 for a long range maritime patrol aircraft able to reach America. This resulted in the EF-100 design. About the EF-100 we have a wealth of performance data available from wind tunnel testing. The military EF-100 became the Ju-390. They were directly related. The EF-100 was planned to have a maximum take off weight of 74,500kg with a 9,000km range. The Ju-390 when first flown had a Gross weight of 75,500kg and a range of 8,000km with 10,000kg payload.
In May 1944 according to flugkapitan Pancherz the Ju-390’s empty weight was reduced by 5,000kg and the take off weight was re-certified at 80,500kg for a range of 11,000km with 10,000kg payload. Pancherz revealed after the war to british Journalist Tom Agoston, his log book notes of a return flight to cape town in early 1944. Obviously this flight far exceeded the Ju-390’s range therefore it either refuelled at a secret location or received aerial refuelling.
Given the difficulty of aerial refuelling a secret landing site is the more obvious answer.
The EF-100 testing predicted a stall speed of just 66 knots and a take off distance of 550 metres giving excellent performance to cope with the 1200 metre runway at Bodo.
Additionally the Junkers Ju-390 at gross weight could land at a runway with 7.5 PCN. In other words an extremely weak runway could bare the weight. The PCN figure is deduced from ESWL.
If you examine the fuel consumption of a Ju-390 for 32 hours at 1800rpm you will find the Ju-390 was capable of flying 7,400 nautical miles. the distance from Bodo to Buenos Aires is about 6,900nm. A one way trip from Bodo was therefore quite possible.
I May be wrong, but I’m reasonably sure the figure in the hat and green coat is “Sleepy” Tripp, Chairman of Pan American Airways, and great rival of Howard Hughes. The picture itself is from a brochure or press release on the topic of the first Boeing StratoCruiser airliner (basically B29 civilian brother) to land at the (then) Idlewild Air Terminal in New York. Idlewild is today JFK International Airport.
Date of the brochure, circa 1954.
Regards, Uyraell.