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Focke-wulf 190 was to become one of the best fighters of WWII with more than 20 000 built in a host of versions. The plane had such a difficult beginning that at one point there were doubts about its continued development. The RLM wanted a new plane that had to be light, robust and easy to main4 tain; and it had to have good performances. On the production series machines, the cockpit wc!'s positioned further back and the wings enlarged
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Historie & Collections - Planes and Pilots 09 - Focke-Wulf FW 190 - From 1939 to 1945
Focke-wulf 190 was to become one of the best fighters of WWII with more than 20 000 built in a host of versions. The plane had such a difficult beginning that at one point there were doubts about its continued development. The RLM wanted a new plane that had to be light, robust and easy to main4 tain; and it had to have good performances. On the production series machines, the cockpit wc!'s positioned further back and the wings enlarged
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Focke-wulf 190 was to become one of the best fighters of WWII with more than 20 000 built in a host of versions. The plane had such a difficult beginning that at one point there were doubts about its continued development. The RLM wanted a new plane that had to be light, robust and easy to main4 tain; and it had to have good performances. On the production series machines, the cockpit wc!'s positioned further back and the wings enlarged
Droits d'auteur :
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Formats disponibles
Téléchargez comme PDF, TXT ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
8 PLANES and PILOTS
OG i t
WING UU
W IS
Dominique
BREFFORT
André
JOUINEAU
J HISTOIRE & COLLECTIONSPLANES and PILOTS
THE FOCKE WULF
FW 190
1939-1945
Dominique BREFFORT
André JOUINEAU
Translated from the French by Alan McKAY
HISTOIRE & COLLECTIONS41 September 1941. British plots flying over the Dunkirk area got
a nasty surprise when they came across a brand new German ar-
‘raft which turned out to be better than their Spitfire Mk V. The Allies
had just run into the Luftwalfe's new fighter, the Focke-Wulf 199,
‘construction of which had started four years earlier. The plane was
to become one of the best fighters of WWII with mare than 20 000
builtin a host of versions although it had such a dificult beginning
that at one point there were doubts about ts continued development.
Inthe autumn of 1997, the RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the
Reich's Air Ministry) started looking for a successor to the Messer-
‘schmitt Bt 108, put into service some eighteen months earlier. Apert
from needing to renew its materiel in the long term, the RLM war-
ted to have two diferent fighter types at its disposal, like the othar
‘great powers (Great Britain, France, etc), in case there should bea
‘World conflict, an eventuality which was geting more and more likely
as time went by.
What the RLM's Technische Amt (the Technical Department) ware
tod was a new plane that had to be light, robust and easy to mal
14, ‘ain; and it had to have good performances - the optimistic figure of
400 mph (640 kph) at 19 700 feet (6 000m) was even bandied about
DIFFICULT BEGINNING
[Abor: The V1 profeype (WN. 0001] under completion in he Fock: Wi
Broan fry ning 78, Te encal dace proper in
nslel i enue cock rhe rail engin wes very qed cond
Mar iar ofa me convtional cca monica es tect ail
tent he fede, he rodney, Be el was
postioned hurr back and he wings enlarged, bute underco oe
reted is wide rock, hersby ging en undspuied odvonoge over
ie 108, ts ect al
Originally no engine in particular was specified, but because t
authorities insisted on two main points - namely Good protection for
the cockpit with addtional armour and the use of reliable equipme
~ an inline engine was out of the question because it used a lig
cooling system which itself was vulnerable and needed protection
which in turn considerably increased the plane's mass.
‘The Focke-Wulf Flugzsugmodelloau had already lost the previous
tender for which the Bf 109 had come out on top, Their Chief Ege
reer in particular, Kurt Tank, saw this new project as a way to boos
the company’s fortunes which as a result were at quite a low ee
‘where building single-engined aircraft was concemed,
Starting in the summer of 1998, a team led by OberingerOpes The rt rfp 1) fhe Fw 19, reseed os D-OPZ and
copealoged wih ho shoes of ats an lig Gas fA 70,7 ond]
How fhe fist non | ne 199) pled by Hors Sond Th ded
spinner ond he cock posifoned right behind the engine can be eon
Seon Reais ng (A
Rudolf Blaser had therefore started working on different projects all
equipped with an inline engine, a type of power plant which was
rather in fashion atthe time, owing mainly to a specialist in the genre,
Daimler-Benz, the engine builder,
Kurt Tank however was convinced that a radial engine could do
the job and satisfy official requirements. After only a fow weeks he
decided to give up the idea of using an inline engine and to concen
trate on a totally new air-cooled radial engine, the BMW 139, This
had eighteen cylinders (two rows ofthe nine cylinders already equip-
ping the BMW 132) and was announced as being more powerlul
than the DB 601 and Jumo 211; it also seemed particularly suited
to what he had in mind, with ts narrow diameter -less than 4 6 in
(1.40 m) - and its excelient power rating (1 550 bhp at take-off). The
oniy cloud on the horizon was that it was just a prototype and up until
then had only been bench tested.
Kurt Tank and his faithful right-hand man, Rudolf Blaser, pushed
‘on with their research all the more energetically and at the end of
1938, the future machine was given its oficial appellation, the Focke-
‘Wilf 190, with an intial order from the RLM for two, then finally three,
prototypes of the new fighter. They were to fly in the spring ofthe fol
Towing year,
Kurt Tank had served in the Cavalry during the Great War and had
often had the opportunity of seeing how wartime conditions often
made military materiel and equipment dificult to use. He defined his
project thus:"/ was convinced that a new type of fighter would have
its place in the coming conflict: it was a machine which could be
flown from badly-prepared airstrips close to the frontline; could be
Below: Prertokeroff preparation for Fw 1904-0 (W.Ns. 0020), factory
registration qumber (Zommkennzzichen) “KBsPV". The comeuflage is made
Up of thre shades of grey [RUM 74,75, and 76) applied in large Bolches
‘onthe wings ond speckles onthe fuselage sides
used and maintained by men who had received only a minimum of
training; basically a simple machine that could take a lot of punish
‘ment and stil get back to its base. That was the idea behind the
Fooke-Wulf 190: it was not a thoroughbred (implied, lke the Bf 102),
but something more ike a workhorse."
Inthe spring of 1999, a fourth protoiype was ordered and instruc-
tions were given to set up a production line for forty pre-production
series machines.
“The Fw190V-1 (V for Versuchsflugzeug - prototype), the first pro-
totype (WerknummenW.Nr.— serial number ~ 0001), completed in
the spring of 1939, started its taxing trials at the Focke-Wull factory
airfield at Bremen in the following May. The plane was a low-wing
monoplane with a small 31 ft2 in wingspan, whereas the Spitire’s
was more than 36 ft it was completely covered in Duralumin except
for the control surfaces which were fabric-covered: the cockpit was
positioned as near the front as possible, shielded by a single-piece
‘transparent canopy without any upright frames thus giving the pilot
excelient visibility. One of the features of the design was the very
wide undercarriage track (11 ft 6 in) which gave the aircraft excep-
tional ground stability, especially in strong side winds. The BMW
engine was installed on a very short mounting, the fireproof bulkhead
being situated aimost directly below the windshield. This engine drove
‘a wide-diameter (10 ft 10 in) three-blade VOM propeller which had
neant using long undercarriage legs, resulting inthe aircraft havinga very nose-up attitude when on the ground. Finally although no
‘armament was installed on this camouflaged prototype which none-
theless bore civilian registration markings, it was immediately rece-
gnisable by its enormous propeller spinner which enclosed a duct
Tuning through the centre designed to ensure the engine was coc-
led since the planned "blower" (a ten-bladed cooling fan) had not
been installed.
“Thus equipped, V1 took off on 1 June flown by Flugkapitén Hane
‘Sander, Chief Test Pit for Focke-Wi atthe time. Although at least
there seemed to have been no incidents during the twenty-minuts
flight, the prototype’s maiden flight did reveal that the engine was
not cooled enough and that the temperature even went up to 55°
inside the cockpit which was positioned right behind the fire proof
bulkhead... Moreover exhaust gas had leaked into the cookgit whic
‘was not airtight and Sander had not been able to open the canopy
because of the slipstream. Finally during particularly tight bends
the landing gear retraction mechanism did nat work properly and
the undercarriage legs came out of their wells rather in rather a1
Untimely manner. As 2 result Kurt Tank decided to fit electric meche-
nisms on future models.
‘The V1 trials were continued frst at Bremen then in July 1993
at the Erprobungstelle, the Luftwaffe’ prototype test centre at Rect
lin, where Hermann Goring and Emst Udet in person turned up fer
a demonstration of the prototype in fight,
Whilst construction of the second prototype was under way,
Focke-Wulf was warned that development of the BMW 139, whic
‘was just what was needed, had been called into doubt then quits
simply thrown out in favour of another power plant, the BMW 801
‘This was just as powerful and had the same diameter, but It was
longer and heavier (about 320 Io) which meant that the design of
the aircraft would have to be quite considerably modified. Fw’ 19)
\V3 and V4, which were already being built, could not be modified.
So it was decided they would not fly; the first was finally used fer
spare parts and the second for structural resistance trials.
Whilst the trials of the V1 - now registered as FOsLY - carried
6 onat Rechiin with the machine reaching 371 mph and turning out
Opposite: A seeneofen tobe seen during the Fw 190 fst months
in eric: Firemen have smothered his Anton’ engine wit foom
here the lower engine coving has been opened. fAW)
to be more agile than the Bf 109, the second prototype (FO+LZ)
took to the air in October 1998. Overall it was generally identical
to the fist aircraft and was equipped with radio, four machine guns
{one pair in the wing roots and the other pair over the engine, all
synchronised to fire through the propeller are) and an oll radiator
housed in the front ofthe engine, just behind the fan. On the other
hand, the large spinner had been retained. This set up was thought
rather ineffective and was removed quickly rom the V1 (end of
January 1940) and the plane was given a more conventional spin-
‘er and engine cowiing in order, Or so they thought, to solve the
BMW engine's overheating probloms. A few days later the samo
change was made to the V2 which had a serious accident the fol
lowing August after it had only put infty or so tying hours.
As the repairs were going to last untl the end of 1940, develop-
ment work ona fith prototype (V5) was speeded up. This was fit-
ted with the new BMW 801 and in comparison with its predeces-
sors had been partly redesigned because the new powerplant was
heavier which meant reinforcing the engine mounting structure and
repositioning the cockpit further back to make up for the extrweight
at the front, At the same time, the height ofthe canopy was also
increased allowing weapons to be installed above the engine inside
the cowiing; the structure was reinforced with stronger and larger
Undercarriage with redesigned whee! wells as a rosult Finally tho
wings were redesigned with both a shortened span and a reduced
angle of attack on the leading edge. These indispensable modi
cations had a cost, a 25% increase in the total mass (+ 1 397 Ib,
ile.a total of7 480i) and less manoeuvrability because of increa
sed wing loading (48.45 lisa t instead of 38 tb/sq ft), confirmed
on the Vs's maiden fight in Apri 1940
By a happy combination of circumstances, because the proto-
type had been slightly damaged during an accident on the ground,
the Focke-Wult engineers took advantage of the fact to fit larger
wings (34 16 in wingspan) with the leading edge futher forward
to reduce the sweep and gain 32 sq ft more wing area: the tain
was algo enlarged (12 ft) $0 that the proportion between the tail
and the wings remained the same.
Quickly christened Vg (tor “grosser Fig! — big wings ~ 198.962
89 ft) — compared with V5k (for “kleiner Flgel— litle wings —
160.368 9 ft), the plane immediately demonstrated how much
more manoeuvrable it was, with a fastor climb rato all or a reduc-
tion in overall performance by only about 6% (6 mph) off the top
speed. It was therefore decided to allow all the machines being
built to benefit rom these modifications.
FOCKE-WULF A-O
In April 1940 when the V5 trials had barely begun, the RLM off-
cially ordered forty pre-series machines to be delivered as quickly
as possible. As it turned out this was nat the good news it seemed
to be because Focke-Wull's Bremen factory was not ready to deal
with such a large order and BMW was not up to supplying more
than six ofits new engines per month. Thanks to Tank’s and Bla-
e's determined work, the first of them, the V6 (Werknummmer 0008),
the first machine bearing the official designation A-0, nonetheless
came off the production line in October 1940 fitted with the VSk's
shorter wing, as were the following eight machines.
‘These first examples from the pre-production series were powe-
red by a BMW 801 C-0 engine fitted with a twelve-bladed (instead
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