8 PLANES and PILOTS OG i t WING UU W IS Dominique BREFFORT André JOUINEAU J HISTOIRE & COLLECTIONSPLANES and PILOTS THE FOCKE WULF FW 190 1939-1945 Dominique BREFFORT André JOUINEAU Translated from the French by Alan McKAY HISTOIRE & COLLECTIONS41 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 OberingerOpes 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 havinga 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