AERO SERIES 18
FOCKE-WULF Fw190 WW2 GERMAN LUFTWAFFE JG
PUBLISHED BY
THE AERONAUTICAL STAFF OF AERO PUBLISHERS INC (FALLBROOK, CA) 1968
SOFTBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH BY EBERHARD
WEBER & UWE FEIST
PROTOTYPE,
PRE-PRODUCTION, LONG RANGE FIGHTER-BOMBER, JAGDGESCHWADER, TORPEDO BOMBER
BMW 801 ENGINE
TROP NORTH
AFRICA AFRIKA KORPS DAK
ETC501 BOMB
RACK
MG151 MACHINE
GUN
MG17 MACHINE
GUN
Mk108 30mm
CANNON
W.Gr.21 21cm
ROCKETS
COLOR PROFILES
COCKPIT /
INSTRUMENT PANEL
Rb12.5/7x9
CAMERA INSTALLATION
TWO-SEATER
VARIANT
TECHNICAL DATA
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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia
The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger (English: Shrike) is a
German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank in the
late 1930s and widely used during World War II. Along with its well-known
counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Focke-Wulf 190 Würger became the
backbone of the Luftwaffe's Jagdwaffe (Fighter Force). The twin-row BMW 801
radial engine that powered most operational versions enabled the Fw 190 to lift
larger loads than the Bf 109, allowing its use as a day fighter,
fighter-bomber, ground-attack aircraft and, to a lesser degree, night fighter.
The Fw 190A started flying operationally over France in
August 1941, and quickly proved superior in all but turn radius to the Royal
Air Force's main front-line fighter, the Spitfire Mk. V,[3] especially at low
and medium altitudes. The 190 maintained superiority over Allied fighters until
the introduction of the improved Spitfire Mk. IX.[4] In November/December 1942,
the Fw 190 made its air combat debut on the Eastern Front, finding much success
in fighter wings and specialised ground attack units called Schlachtgeschwader
(Battle Wings or Strike Wings) from October 1943 onwards. The Fw 190 provided
greater firepower than the Bf 109, and at low to medium altitude, superior
manoeuvrability, in the opinion of German pilots who flew both fighters.
The Fw 190A series' performance decreased at high
altitudes (usually 6,000 m (20,000 ft) and above), which reduced its
effectiveness as a high-altitude interceptor. From the Fw 190's inception,
there had been ongoing efforts to address this with a turbosupercharged BMW 801
in the B model, the much longer-nosed C model with efforts to also turbocharge
its chosen Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 powerplant, and the similarly
long-nosed D model with the Junkers Jumo 213. Problems with the turbocharger
installations on the -B and -C subtypes meant only the D model would see
service, entering service in September 1944. While these "long nose"
versions gave the Germans parity with Allied opponents, they arrived far too
late in the war to have any real effect.
The Fw 190 was well-liked by its pilots. Some of the
Luftwaffe's most successful fighter aces claimed a great many of their kills
while flying it, including Otto Kittel, Walter Nowotny and Erich Rudorffer.
At the time, the use of radial engines in land-based fighters
was relatively rare in Europe, as it was believed that their large frontal area
would cause too much drag on something as small as a fighter. Tank was not
convinced of this, having witnessed the successful use of radial engines by the
U.S. Navy, and felt a properly streamlined installation would eliminate this
problem.
The hottest points on any air-cooled engine are the
cylinder heads, located around the circumference of a radial engine. In order
to provide sufficient air to cool the engine, airflow had to be maximized at
this outer edge. This was normally accomplished by leaving the majority of the
front face of the engine open to the air, causing considerable drag. During the
late 1920s, NACA led development of a dramatic improvement by placing an
airfoil-shaped ring around the outside of the cylinder heads (the NACA
cowling). The shaping accelerated the air as it entered the front of the cowl,
increasing the total airflow, and allowing the opening in front of the engine
to be made smaller.
Tank introduced a further refinement to this basic
concept. He suggested placing most of the airflow components on the propeller,
in the form of an oversized propeller spinner whose outside diameter was the
same as the engine. The cowl around the engine proper was greatly simplified,
essentially a basic cylinder. Air entered through a small hole at the centre of
the spinner, and was directed through ductwork in the spinner so it was blowing
rearward along the cylinder heads. To provide enough airflow, an internal cone
was placed in the centre of the hole, over the propeller hub, which was
intended to compress the airflow and allow a smaller opening to be used. In
theory, the tight-fitting cowling also provided some thrust due to the
compression and heating of air as it flowed through the cowling.
In contrast to the complex, failure-prone fuselage
mounted main gear legs of the earlier Fw 159, one of the main features of the
Fw 190 was its wide-tracked, inwards-retracting landing gear. They were
designed to withstand a sink rate of 4.5 meters per second (15 feet per second,
900 feet per minute), double the strength factor usually required. Hydraulic
wheel brakes were used.[12] The wide-track landing gear produced better ground
handling characteristics, and the Fw 190 suffered fewer ground accidents than
the Bf 109. (The Bf 109's narrow-track, outwards-retracting landing gear hinged
on its wing root structure to help lower weight, but this led to inherent
weakness and many failures and ground loops.[12]) The Fw 190's retractable tail
gear used a cable, anchored to the "elbow" at the midpoint of the
starboard maingear's transverse retraction arms, which ran aftwards within the
fuselage to the vertical fin to operate the tailwheel retraction function. The
tailwheel's retraction mechanical design possessed a set of pulleys to guide
the aforementioned cable to the top of the tailwheel's oleo strut, pulling it
upwards along a diagonal track within the fin, into the lower fuselage this
mechanism was accessible through prominently visible twin triangular-shaped
hinged panels, one per side, in the fin's side sheetmetal covering.[13] On some
versions of the Fw 190 an extended oleo strut could be fitted for larger-sized
loads (such as bombs or even a torpedo) beneath the fuselage.
Most aircraft of the era used cables and pulleys to
operate their controls. The cables tended to stretch, resulting in the
sensations of "give" and "play" that made the controls less
crisp and responsive, and required constant maintenance to correct. For the new
design, the team replaced the cables with rigid pushrods and bearings to
eliminate this problem.[N 2] Another innovation was making the controls as
light as possible. The maximum resistance of the ailerons was limited to 3.5 kg
(8 lb), as the average man's wrist could not exert a greater force. The
empennage (tail assembly) featured relatively small and well-balanced horizontal
and vertical surfaces.
The design team also attempted to minimize changes in the
aircraft's trim at varying speeds, thus reducing the pilot's workload. They
were so successful in this regard that they found in-flight-adjustable aileron
and rudder trim tabs were not necessary. Small, fixed tabs were fitted to
control surfaces and adjusted for proper balance during initial test flights.
Only the elevator trim needed to be adjusted in flight (a feature common to all
aircraft). This was accomplished by tilting the entire horizontal tailplane
with an electric motor, with an angle of incidence ranging from −3° to +5°.
Another aspect of the new design was the extensive use of
electrically powered equipment instead of the hydraulic systems used by most
aircraft manufacturers of the time. On the first two prototypes, the main
landing gear was hydraulic. Starting with the third prototype, the
undercarriage was operated by push buttons controlling electric motors in the
wings, and was kept in position by electric up and down-locks.[17] The armament
was also loaded and fired electrically. Tank believed that service use would
prove that electrically powered systems were more reliable and more rugged than
hydraulics, electric lines being much less prone to damage from enemy fire.
Like the Bf 109, the Fw 190 featured a fairly small wing
planform with relatively high wing loading. This presents a trade-off in
performance. An aircraft with a smaller wing suffers less drag under most
flight conditions and therefore flies faster and may have better range.
However, it also means the wing generates less lift at lower speeds, making it
less maneuverable and also reduces performance in the thinner air at higher
altitudes. The wings spanned 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) and had an area of 15 m² (161
ft²). The wing was designed using the NACA 23015.3 airfoil at the root and the
NACA 23009 airfoil at the tip.
Earlier aircraft designs generally featured canopies
consisting of small plates of perspex (called Plexiglas in the United States)
in a metal framework, with the top of the canopy even with the rear fuselage.
This design considerably limited visibility, especially to the rear. The
introduction of vacuum forming led to the creation of the "bubble
canopy" which was largely self-supporting, and could be mounted over the
cockpit, offering greatly improved all-round visibility. Tank's design for the
Fw 190 used a canopy with a frame that ran around the perimeter, with only a
short, centerline seam along the top, running rearward from the radio antenna
fitting where the three-panel windscreen and forward edge of the canopy met,
just in front of the pilot.
The eventual choice of the BMW 801 14-cylinder radial
over the more troublesome BMW 139 also brought with it a BMW-designed cowling
"system" which integrated the radiator used to cool the motor oil. An
annular, ring-shaped oil cooler core was built into the BMW-provided forward
cowl, just behind the fan. The outer portion of the oil cooler's core was in
contact with the main cowling's sheet metal. Comprising the BMW-designed
forward cowl, in front of the oil cooler was a ring of metal with a C-shaped
cross-section, with the outer lip lying just outside the rim of the cowl, and
the inner side on the inside of the oil cooler core. Together, the metal ring
and cowling formed an S-shaped duct with the oil cooler's core contained
between them. Airflow past the gap between the cowl and outer lip of the metal
ring produced a vacuum effect that pulled air from the front of the engine
forward across the oil cooler core to provide cooling for the 801's motor oil.
The rate of cooling airflow over the core could be controlled by moving the
metal ring in order to open or close the gap. The reasons for this complex
system were threefold. One was to reduce any extra aerodynamic drag of the oil
radiator, in this case largely eliminating it by placing it within the same
cowling as the engine. The second was to warm the air before it flowed to the
radiator to aid warming the oil during starting. Finally, by placing the
radiator behind the fan, cooling was provided even while the aircraft was
parked. The disadvantage to this design was that the radiator was in an
extremely vulnerable location, and the metal ring was increasingly armoured as
the war progressed.