Focke-Wulf Ta 183
Encyclopedia : F : FO : FOC : Focke-Wulf Ta 183
The Focke-Wulf Ta-183 Huckebein was a jet-powered fighter aircraft, designed during World War II as the successor to the Messerschmitt Me 262 in Luftwaffe service.
Background
In early 1945 the RLM was looking for a successor for the first german jet-fighters Me 262 and He 162.The result was a series of advanced designs, some using swept wings for improved transonic performance, others instead using the tailless design to lower drag to the same end. Unknown to the engineers at the time, tailess designs have serious stability problems in the transonic, a problem first explored in depth in the X-4 Bantam.
Design
Development of the Ta 183 started as early as 1942, when the engineer Hans Multhopp assembled a team to design a new fighter. The plane was intended to use the advanced Heinkel HeS 011 turbojet, although the first prototypes were to be powered by the Junkers Jumo 004B. Early studies also included an optional 1000 kgf (10 kN) thrust rocket engine for takeoff and combat boost, fuel for up to 200 seconds of burn time stored in drop tanks under the wings.The wings were swept back at 40 degrees and were mounted in the mid-fuselage position. The wings appear to be mounted very far forward compared to most designs, a side effect of attempting to keep the center of pressure (CoP) of the wing as a whole as close to the middle of the fuselage as possible. The main spar consisted of two tapered aluminum I-beams attached together on the top and bottom with thin steel sheeting. The box-like structure contained six fuel cells, giving the aircraft a total fuel load of 1,565 liters. Wooden ribs were attached to the front and back of the I-beams to give the wing its overall shape, and then covered with plywood.
The original design used a T-tail, with a notably long vertical stabilizer and a seemingly undersized horizontal stabilizer. The vertical tail was swept back at 60 degrees, and the horizontal tail was V-shaped and bent upwards somewhat. The horizontal surface was used only for trimming, the main pitching force being provided by the ailerons, which were well behind the center of gravity and thus could provide both pitch and roll control.
The Ta 183 had a short fuselage with the air intake passing under the cockpit and proceeding to the rear where the single engine was located. The pilot sat in a pressurized cockpit with a bubble canopy which provided excellent vision. The primary armament of the plane consisted of four 30 mm MK 108 cannons arranged around the air intake. It was also possible to carry a bomb load of 500 kg (1,100 lb) or a reconnaissance camera.
Multhopp's team also seriously explored a second version of the basic design, known as Design III, the original being Design II (it is unknown what Design I referred to). The main differences were a reduced wing sweep of 35 degrees, allowing the wing and cockpit to be moved rearward. The tail was also redesigned, using a short horizontal boom to mount the control surfaces just above the line of the rear fuselage. This version looks considerably more "conventional" to the modern eye, although somewhat stubby due to the short overall length of the HeS 011.
On February 28, 1945, the Luftwaffe High Command examined the various Emergency Fighter proposals and selected the Ta 183 to be developed and produced. Sixteen prototypes were to be built, allowing the tail unit to be interchanged between the Design II and III variations. The first flight of the aircraft was projected for May 1945 but none were completed by April 8, 1945, when British troops captured the Focke-Wulf facilities.
Offspring
After the end of the war, Multhopp moved to the United States, where he gave valuable insight into swept wing design. As a direct result of this information, the F-86 Sabre and later versions of the F-84 both incorporated swept wings.The Soviets found a set of Ta 183 plans after the war in the former Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin. In March of 1946, Soviet leadership requested a new swept wing jet fighter from the major aircraft design houses. The Mikoyan OKB used data from Ta 183 development to contribute to one of their own projects, designated I-310. Unlike the Ta 183, the MiG design was an all-metal airplane designed around a larger British Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal flow turbojet. The first I-310 took to the air in July, 1947 and competed against the similar Lavochkin La-168. After some design changes, the project resulted in the famous MiG-15.
Kurt Tank, while in exile in Argentina, also continued the Ta 183 project, resulting in the IAe Pulqui II. This version was modified to place the wings at a shoulder-mounted position, for reasons which are unclear, which resulted in deep stall problems at high angles of attack. This seemed solvable, however, and a newer version correcting these problems was planned. However the financial crash of 1953 and the fall of Juan Peron ended the project, at first temporarily, and by 1955, permanently.
Specifications (Ta 183, as originally designed)
Related content
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.