The Military Channel was highlighting the Luftwaffe and showed an FW 190, but the spinner and fuselage were almost one; very streamlined with little or no gap for an air intake like a regular radial engine. I couldnt find much on it other than a reference to an early design variant. Do you know of any kits or conversions that depict this unique design? The FW 190 body shape really evolved as the war progressed, more-so than any plane I can think of.
A 1/72 kit was produced of the prototype.
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/1999/01/stuff_eng_fridsell_fw190.htm
The ducted spinner was only used on the first prototype model of the FW-190. Although it streamlined the aircraft’s profile, it didn’t sufficiently cool the engine and a more traditional spinner was used on production models. [:)]
Absolutely the butt-ugliest Fw 190 ever…
!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/HansvonHammer/Aircraft Profiles/Fw190V1.jpg?t=1304444732)
I agree. Always liked the “Dora” and the TA-152.
Not quite. The later versions got so long and curved I call them Focke Bananas. Planes are like diesel locomotives…they don’t need to look good to work well.
It was the A-O prototype model…that particular cowling caused the engine to overheat, something that the later models suffered from even after the airflow was opened up…
Fair enough, but you’ll sell more kits if they look better!
not enough rust on it…
Sometimes true, more than not though, it isn’t… The general consensus among fighter pilots is that if it looks good, it probably is… But, there are always exceptions… In the case of the Fw 190V1though, it didn’t look good, and it had massive overheating problems, as was pointed out… Tank had the cowl so streamlined and tight, that even though plane performed well, it still suffered from over-heating problems at medium and low altitudes (where most of the air-fighting on the Eastern Front happened) even with the smaller spinner and the addition of the cooling fan aft of the prop…
On the Ostfront, a “high-altitude” engagement was normally at 10-to-15,000 feet and lower, not the 20-27,000 foot engagements of the Western Front… After one or two passes and a couple turns, the fight would routinely wind up down on the deck… Certainly that’s no place to have your engine start cooking itself… The only way that Fw-190 pilots could avoid over-heating on the dek was to minimize the use of full military power and only in dire emergencies resort to water injection… Speed is life, and being able to use only 2/3rds of the FW engine’s power wasn’t condusive to longevity…
…and I saw a seam…[whstl]
Herr von Hammer: I didn’t know that! I learn something every day among these threads. [:^)]
Hans should know.
MajMike:
I don’t recall seeing your avatar at the time so you may not have seen Hans’ previous Avatars.
Hans once had an Avatar of him in the cockpit of an Fw-190.[H]
I’d better be nicer to him, then.
Nah, that’d be the one on your 6. I think the radials are better looking, myself. And the shorter wings, like an A3. I saw the one at Reno last year, surprising how small it was.
Hmmm. Was it capable of flying? To my knowledge, the only “flyer” is a 3/4 scale replica built from scratch. [:^)]
My information may be outdated, but last I knew, The Flying Heritage Foudation has an airworthy Fw 190, and several are under restoration (White One Foundation is restoring two, and the WW2 Fighter Aircraft Foundation is restoring a Dora-9), as well as “New” ones being built by Flug Werke GmbH…
http://www.flugwerk.de/html/page.php?GID=19&SID=4
It’s in German but the pics are nice…
Here’s what I can gleen from my limited German…
The airframe of the FW 190, the main theme of recent years is also still present, although the program is now slowly coming to an end. A total of 20 kits were manufactured, of which there are 16 in the hands of customers. Two kits remain with airframes and two others are riveted together and are used to secure the supply of spare parts. The owners of the “kits” are busy with some different financial applications, personal energy and effort. Among them are three kits that will be completed as static Fw 190s and are to be exhibited in museums (or will be loaned to them).
- supplemented with many original parts
The rest is somethiong about oil coolers, and I got wrecked trying to translate it without the wife here… (She’s a native German-speaker)
I’ve picked up the past few issues of a Brit magazine, Classic Aviation. The most recent issue has an article on the wrap-up of operations by Flug Werke now that the 20 kits have been finished. Sounds like the tooling & program info is now up for sale as they have decided to move on to other projects.
So get one while you can!
Wish I could… I actually fit into a Focke-Wulf… Can’t say that about the '109, lol… It just wasn’t made for a 6’2", 210 pound pilot, lol…