Focke Wulf Fw-187

[nuuumannn]

The Fw 187A-0's maximum speed, according to Hermann and Petrick's book was 328 mph, the de Havilland Hornet F.3's maximum speed was 472 mph according to Warpaint Series No.19 de Havilland Hornet and Sea Hornet. Tell me how you would expect to get the Fw 187 to equal that speed without carrying out drag reduction measures. Remembering that drag reduction includes improving the profile of the nacelles, radiators etc, which would have to be done if a different engine is put on it at any rate. But would that be enough with the engines that the Germans had at the time?

According to Hermann and Petrick's book, the projected maximum speed of the Fw 187 Kampfzerstorer with 2 DB 605s was 423 mph, which is a big improvement over the previous model, but since this aircraft was not built, they are speculative figures only. They also still trail behind the Hornet by some margin. Even the proposed high altitude single-seat fighter variant with DB 605s, at 450 mph was still not as fast as the production Hornet Mk.3.

 

[sienar]

So yes, I'd say you need to do some basic math before making claims like that.

Nope, I won't (who are you to tell me what I can and can't write?) and I'll keep making claims like that because those figures are not done with the benefit of a wind tunnel and the measures you've claimed in your previous thread on the airframe. They are a simple calculation done without the benefit of hard research into the aerodynamic properties of either aircraft and don't prove a thing. There are loads of examples where aerodynamicists have produced figures that stated their designs would do a particular speed, but when the real things were built, they couldn't, so your figures prove nothing.

And this is because you cannot simply eyeball this stuff, and you certainly need to have a very solid understanding of aerodynamics before you claim one airframe is draggy than other based off photos.

Yes you can! It's easy mate and you don't need to do a calculation! Look at the figures for both aircraft! How do you suspect to improve the speed of one to achieve the other to that extent without drag reduction measures!

Do you know what a drag count is?

EDIT: I calculate the swet of the 187 at ~1200sqft. This is a low estimate given that I didn't include fillets and assumed the fuselage was pretty close to triangle. Given that the aircraft did 326mph on 1342 this works out to a flat plate area of 6.307. This means the Fw-187 has a drag count of around 0.0053 - and again that is a high estimate given that the real swet of the aircraft is going to be higher that my estimate. So call 0.0054 an upper bound for the 187 and 0.0050 a lower bound. How does this compare to other aircraft?

P-38 = 0.0054
P-51 = 0.0038 (lowest measured for a ww2 piston fighter that I know of)
P-80 = 0.0033

And for fun, the AR-5 is 0.0037 which is the lowest I know of for a piston powered aircraft. Although the CEA-308 and 311 are probably lower, along with nemesis and a few other reno machines.

So the 187 is pretty damn clean for a piston twin, and especially clean for 1937.

 

[newsdeskdan]

According to Hermann and Petrick's book, the projected maximum speed of the Fw 187 Kampfzerstorer with 2 DB 605s was 423 mph, which is a big improvement over the previous model, but since this aircraft was not built, they are speculative figures only.

The Focke-Wulf brochure (it's not really a proper report - more a set of drawings with a few key points sprinkled in between, dated August 10, 1942) gives a maximum speed of 700km/h at 8000m for the Fw 187 Zweisitziger Kampfzerstoerer ("Triebwerk: 2 x DB 605 Triebwerke von der Me 109 G oder 2 x DB 628") 'ohne Bombe' or 670km/h 'mit Bombe', which I think is 434mph and 416mph respectively.
Two drawings of the BMW 801 D-powered version are included (3-view and side view) but sadly no performance stats are provided.
The 682km/h performance figure for the 'Fw 187 C-0 Kampfzerstoerer / Night fighter' appears on a table in the Hermann / Petrick book but no source is given for it.
As with the 'Stuka version', Hermann and Petrick make the classic error of overplaying the importance of their subject. The revived Fw 187 of August 1942 does not seem to have been a genuine 'competitor' for the Me 410 - it is barely mentioned in GL meeting transcripts of the period - nor was it ever a real competitor for the He 219 as a night fighter. The only mention I could find, in fact, comes from the Entwicklungsbesprechung of 18.8.42 (see relevant section below).
It says that the Fw 187 would make a good destroyer but would be too small as a night fighter. Also, it would practically mean a new development, since not much more than the outer shape can be taken from the old Fw 187 - "Ausserdem wuerde sie praktisch eine Neuentwicklung bedeuten, da von der alten Fw 187 nicht viel mehr als die aeussere Form uebernommen werden kann."
Good to see that the engineers of the RLM back in 1942 reached the same conclusion as me about the potential for re-engining the Fw 187 without a complete redesign.
Hermann and Petrick say (p135 of the 2003 Schiffer edition): "The He 219 was selected over the Fw 187, at least for the night fighter role. Why was this? No official reason has yet been discovered." Well, the official reason has now been discovered.
The revived Fw 187 survived about eight days between the brochure being issued and the project being discontinued.

 

[blackkite]

Hi!
Fw 187 V3 (D-ORHP) flew in spring 1938, but it suffered a starboard engine fire during one of the initial test flights and damaged its main landing gear in the resulting forced landing. It was quickly repaired and returned to service.

Two additional two-seat prototypes, V4 (D-OSNP) and V5 (D-OTGN), followed in the summer and autumn of 1938 respectively. While also powered by the Jumo 210, their performance was disappointing and led to a decision that any advantages of the new type would not warrant the replacement of the existing Bf 110.

The final prototype, Fw 187 V6 (D-CINY), was more heavily modified, receiving the originally specified 736 kW (1,000 PS) DB 600 engines, as well as a new surface evaporative cooling system for reduced drag. First flown in early 1939 it proved to have serious cooling problems (in common with other designs using the system, like the Heinkel He 100) and suffered some skin buckling and distortion. Nevertheless, during a series of carefully timed and measured runs in October 1939, the Fw 187 V6 reached 634 km/h (395 mph) in level flight, making it the fastest fighter in Germany at the time.(Wikipedia)

 

[blackkite]

Hi V3, V4 and V5.

 

[blackkite]

Hi! More V2 (AODE).

 

[blackkite]

Hi!
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/fw187-in-bob-luftwaffes-p-51.294482/

 

[tallguy]

Hi!
Fw 187 V3 (D-ORHP) flew in spring 1938, but it suffered a starboard engine fire during one of the initial test flights and damaged its main landing gear in the resulting forced landing. It was quickly repaired and returned to service.

Two additional two-seat prototypes, V4 (D-OSNP) and V5 (D-OTGN), followed in the summer and autumn of 1938 respectively. While also powered by the Jumo 210, their performance was disappointing and led to a decision that any advantages of the new type would not warrant the replacement of the existing Bf 110.

The final prototype, Fw 187 V6 (D-CINY), was more heavily modified, receiving the originally specified 736 kW (1,000 PS) DB 600 engines, as well as a new surface evaporative cooling system for reduced drag. First flown in early 1939 it proved to have serious cooling problems (in common with other designs using the system, like the Heinkel He 100) and suffered some skin buckling and distortion. Nevertheless, during a series of carefully timed and measured runs in October 1939, the Fw 187 V6 reached 634 km/h (395 mph) in level flight, making it the fastest fighter in Germany at the time.(Wikipedia)

I was wondering when this would come up.

 

[newsdeskdan]

I was wondering when this would come up.

Good old reliable Wikipedia.

The best I can do towards corroborating the DB 600 point is a section of Appendix III in Design for Flight - the Kurt Tank Story by Heinz Conradis, published in 1960. Conradis was a member of senior management at Focke-Wulf during the war and knew Tank well, although how far he was ever involved in the minutiae of aircraft design is unclear.
Before I proceed, it's worth noting that Design for Flight was the English translation of Conradis's 1955 German-language book Nerven, Herz und Rechenschieber, which was reissued in 1959 as Forschen und Fliegen - Weg und Werk von Kurt Tank. Neither of the two German-language versions of the book have this appendix and I suspect that it was added by MacDonald, the English version's London-based publisher, to make it more interesting and useful for 'plane spotters'. Who actually wrote it is equally unclear. It may have been Conradis himself, or it may have been the translator Kenneth Kettle, or an uncredited third party.
In any case, it may well be the source for most later accounts of the Fw 187's development (including, it would appear, those used as source material for the Wikipedia entry). The appendix is headed: "Development histories of aircraft produced under the direction of Prof. Dipl. Ing. Kurt Tank" and it begins: "Fw 187. Early in 1936, Dipl. Ing. Kurt Tank showed drawings of a new, twin-engined single-seat long-range fighter which, he claimed, with two of 960 h.p. Daimler-Benz DB 600 engines, would attain a speed of 348 m.p.h.
"Tank's revolutionary plans aroused considerable interest, but to the officials of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium it seemed pointless to use two engines to achieve the same results as one, and, in any case, the prevailing theory was that bombers could be produced with sufficient speed to dispense with the long-range fighter escort.
"Despite the coolness towards his project displayed by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, Tank submitted his proposals to the Technischen Amt (Ministry of Planning and Supply) and found some support in General von Richthofen. This resulted in an order for three prototypes, the fighter being allocated the type number "Fw 187". Construction began under the supervision of Oberingenieur Blaser, and in the summer of 1937 the first prototype, Fw 187V1 was ready for its first flight test. The R.L.M. had refused to release the new DB 600 engines called for by Tank's original proposals as these were all required for installation in the Bf 109D and the prototypes of the Bf 110, and therefore two 635 h.p. Junkers Jumo 210D engines had been installed. Despite the fact that these engines had some thirty-five per cent less total power than that originally considered necessary by Tank, the Fw 187V1 attained a maximum speed of 325 m.p.h. in level flight, nearly 20 m.p.h. faster than the best speed attained by the contemporary Bf 110 with the more powerful Daimler-Benz engines, and 33 m.p.h. faster than the Luftwaffe's newest service fighter, the Bf 109B."
It goes on to say that:
"The third two-seat prototype, the Fw 187V6, carried no armament but was fitted with two DB 600A engines with a surface evaporation cooling system. With some 1,900 h.p. available, the Fw 187V6 attained what was for that time the phenomenal speed of 390 m.p.h., but the surface evaporation cooling system proved to be completely unreliable and was abandoned."

Other evidence:
There was an article in Swedish publication Flygning No. 18A of September 1940 which gave the powerplants of the two-seater Fw 187 as two Jumo 211 Ba or Da, or two DB 601 Aa or Ba.
The French 'Journal de la Marine' (I think that's what it's called - the handwriting on the British intelligence report is spidery at best) of July 31, 1941 said that the Fw 187 would be powered by the DB 603.
Most other British intelligence reports on the type from 1942 onwards have it powered by two DB 601s or two DB 603s.

Assessing the Conradis account, it can be observed that the line about Tank showing drawings around in early 1936 is inaccurate. The RLM had been aware of what would become the Fw 187 long before that - verified by the RLM development charts. As I mentioned, there appears to be no surviving period evidence to suggest that the 187 was originally designed with the 600 in mind or that Focke-Wulf was denied its use. Certainly, the Fw 259 (the existence of which few seem to have been aware) was one of the first aircraft to be specified with the 600 - so the idea that all 600 production was earmarked for the 109 (which wasn't selected as the winner of the fighter competition until the 187 prototypes were nearing completion) also seems suspect. And this is leaving aside the note that the Technisches Amt was the 'Ministry of Planning and Supply' - Conradis would have known at a glance, had he seen this, that it was wrong.

 

[tallguy]

I was wondering when this would come up.

Good old reliable Wikipedia.

The best I can do towards corroborating the DB 600 point is a section of Appendix III in Design for Flight - the Kurt Tank Story by Heinz Conradis, published in 1960. Conradis was a member of senior management at Focke-Wulf during the war and knew Tank well, although how far he was ever involved in the minutiae of aircraft design is unclear.
Before I proceed, it's worth noting that Design for Flight was the English translation of Conradis's 1955 German-language book Nerven, Herz und Rechenschieber, which was reissued in 1959 as Forschen und Fliegen - Weg und Werk von Kurt Tank. Neither of the two German-language versions of the book have this appendix and I suspect that it was added by MacDonald, the English version's London-based publisher, to make it more interesting and useful for 'plane spotters'. Who actually wrote it is equally unclear. It may have been Conradis himself, or it may have been the translator Kenneth Kettle, or an uncredited third party.
In any case, it may well be the source for most later accounts of the Fw 187's development (including, it would appear, those used as source material for the Wikipedia entry). The appendix is headed: "Development histories of aircraft produced under the direction of Prof. Dipl. Ing. Kurt Tank" and it begins: "Fw 187. Early in 1936, Dipl. Ing. Kurt Tank showed drawings of a new, twin-engined single-seat long-range fighter which, he claimed, with two of 960 h.p. Daimler-Benz DB 600 engines, would attain a speed of 348 m.p.h.
"Tank's revolutionary plans aroused considerable interest, but to the officials of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium it seemed pointless to use two engines to achieve the same results as one, and, in any case, the prevailing theory was that bombers could be produced with sufficient speed to dispense with the long-range fighter escort.
"Despite the coolness towards his project displayed by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, Tank submitted his proposals to the Technischen Amt (Ministry of Planning and Supply) and found some support in General von Richthofen. This resulted in an order for three prototypes, the fighter being allocated the type number "Fw 187". Construction began under the supervision of Oberingenieur Blaser, and in the summer of 1937 the first prototype, Fw 187V1 was ready for its first flight test. The R.L.M. had refused to release the new DB 600 engines called for by Tank's original proposals as these were all required for installation in the Bf 109D and the prototypes of the Bf 110, and therefore two 635 h.p. Junkers Jumo 210D engines had been installed. Despite the fact that these engines had some thirty-five per cent less total power than that originally considered necessary by Tank, the Fw 187V1 attained a maximum speed of 325 m.p.h. in level flight, nearly 20 m.p.h. faster than the best speed attained by the contemporary Bf 110 with the more powerful Daimler-Benz engines, and 33 m.p.h. faster than the Luftwaffe's newest service fighter, the Bf 109B."
It goes on to say that:
"The third two-seat prototype, the Fw 187V6, carried no armament but was fitted with two DB 600A engines with a surface evaporation cooling system. With some 1,900 h.p. available, the Fw 187V6 attained what was for that time the phenomenal speed of 390 m.p.h., but the surface evaporation cooling system proved to be completely unreliable and was abandoned."

Other evidence:
There was an article in Swedish publication Flygning No. 18A of September 1940 which gave the powerplants of the two-seater Fw 187 as two Jumo 211 Ba or Da, or two DB 601 Aa or Ba.
The French 'Journal de la Marine' (I think that's what it's called - the handwriting on the British intelligence report is spidery at best) of July 31, 1941 said that the Fw 187 would be powered by the DB 603.
Most other British intelligence reports on the type from 1942 onwards have it powered by two DB 601s or two DB 603s.

Assessing the Conradis account, it can be observed that the line about Tank showing drawings around in early 1936 is inaccurate. The RLM had been aware of what would become the Fw 187 long before that - verified by the RLM development charts. As I mentioned, there appears to be no surviving period evidence to suggest that the 187 was originally designed with the 600 in mind or that Focke-Wulf was denied its use. Certainly, the Fw 259 (the existence of which few seem to have been aware) was one of the first aircraft to be specified with the 600 - so the idea that all 600 production was earmarked for the 109 (which wasn't selected as the winner of the fighter competition until the 187 prototypes were nearing completion) also seems suspect. And this is leaving aside the note that the Technisches Amt was the 'Ministry of Planning and Supply' - Conradis would have known at a glance, had he seen this, that it was wrong.

Evidence of 601 shortage abounds. The He 111, for example.

 

[Arjen]

I have three books that claim the Fw 187 V6 had DB 600A engines
- Warplanes of the Third Reich by William Green, Doubleday 1970
- German Aircraft of the Second World War by J.R. Smith and Antony Kay, Putnam 1972
- Kurt Tank - Konstrukteur und Testpilot bei Focke-Wulf (Die Deutsche Luftfahrt #1) by Wolfgang Wagner, 2nd edition, Bernard & Graefe 1991 - 1st edition 1980

All authors write the V6 reached a speed of 630 to 635 km/h on trials. Wagner writes that speed was reached 'am Boden' - at ground level (!). Skin buckling, cooling problems are reported by all.
Wagner writes surface evaporative cooling was adopted on the V6 after a suggestion from the RLM. Wagner writes Tank had doubts about the operational use of such cooling.
Green, Smith & Kay all suggest the use of surface evaporative cooling was Tank's own idea.

Side view of V6 from Green, rear view of V6 from Wagner.
Unfortunately, none of the authors provide sources.

 

[nuuumannn]

Hermann and Petrick say (p135 of the 2003 Schiffer edition): "The He 219 was selected over the Fw 187, at least for the night fighter role. Why was this? No official reason has yet been discovered." Well, the official reason has now been discovered.
The revived Fw 187 survived about eight days between the brochure being issued and the project being discontinued.

Great info, Dan. Perhaps a more accurate and less presumptuous book on the Fw 187 is due?

 

[nuuumannn]

So the 187 is pretty damn clean for a piston twin, and especially clean for 1937.

It is, and its performance for that time was remarkable. If you want it to be faster though, you've got work to do.

Do you know what a drag count is?

I'm going to ignore the fact you are presuming my ignorance. Doing so by you is changing the focus of this discussion, so you can stop it there. I also noticed you haven't answered my question about whether drag reduction would be necessary to get the aircraft to match the performance of the Hornet. I should also add that the Hornet prototype managed the rather astonishing maximum speed in trials of 491 mph.

 

[newsdeskdan]

I have three books that claim the Fw 187 V6 had DB 600A engines
- Warplanes of the Third Reich by William Green, Doubleday 1970
- German Aircraft of the Second World War by J.R. Smith and Antony Kay, Putnam 1972
- Kurt Tank - Konstrukteur und Testpilot bei Focke-Wulf (Die Deutsche Luftfahrt #1) by Wolfgang Wagner, 2nd edition, Bernard & Graefe 1991 - 1st edition 1980

All authors write the V6 reached a speed of 630 to 635 km/h on trials. Wagner writes that speed was reached 'am Boden' - at ground level (!). Skin buckling, cooling problems are reported by all.
Wagner writes surface evaporative cooling was adopted on the V6 after a suggestion from the RLM. Wagner writes Tank had doubts about the operational use of such cooling.
Green, Smith & Kay all suggest the use of surface evaporative cooling was Tank's own idea.

Side view of V6 from Green, rear view of V6 from Wagner.
Unfortunately, none of the authors provide sources.

In its day, Warplanes of the Third Reich was regarded as the most authoritative book in the world on German WW2 aircraft development. I have a well-thumbed copy myself. However, as has been rehearsed numerous times elsewhere on this forum, Green (a journalist rather than a historian) was writing at a time when the lack of tools such as PCs, digital cameras and scanners made it very difficult to copy, store and easily access large quantities of material outside of an archive setting. Not only that, most archives were (I'm told) nowhere near as well organised back then and much of what Green was writing about was still classified by the British government. And as you say, Green does not say where any of his information comes from.
In short, today - half a century later - his book is entirely unreliable as a source for anything except working out where people have got their inaccurate information from. The Smith/Kay book appears to draw heavily on Green. Smith, certainly, has gone on to correct much of the inaccuracies of German Aircraft of the Second World War in later works. I have a copy of Wagner's book but it's in a box in my garage along with numerous other books which are too inaccurate to bother keeping around. I've found, as I'm sure many others will have, that information which appears in one book often then ends up in another book, then another - and no-one is then sure where that information came from in the first place. As time goes on, new authors go back to the 'authoritative' old ones and copy their work, assuming it is 'fact'.
In short, while the Fw 187 V6 (or V5, according to Hermann and Petrick) may have been and done everything these authors claim that it was and did, without primary source evidence to corroborate it we are not, regretably, in a position to say with any certainty that those authors' claims are based on anything other than rumours and hearsay. Assuming Hermann and Petrick are right about the DB 601 project aircraft being the V5, how far can we rely on all the skin buckling and cooling problems the others report, when they're attributing those problems to the wrong prototype?
I know the idea that reputable authors would rely on rumour and hearsay is unpalatable and may seem unlikely - who would even make up such rumours? Surely there is a grain of truth in them? Not necessarily. Anyone who has looked through the British wartime intelligence and POW interrogation files on German WW2 aircraft development at Kew will be aware that period sources - even people who worked for the companies concerned - often came out with all sorts of rubbish which even at the time could be proved wrong. Whether they were lying or guessing or were simply misinformed - or whether the interrogators misheard or misrecorded what was said etc. is never entirely clear. But all these inaccuracies - sometimes quite detailed - were recorded as 'intelligence'.
Hermann and Petrick list their sources at the back of the book. Among these are meeting reports relating to 'hot cooling' for the Fw 187 V5 - but there are no flight test reports for it that I can see. Nor is there anything which looks like evidence to show that the aircraft was completed and flown with the DB 601. At the top of their book/magazine bibliography is Nerven, Herz und Rechenschieber by Conradis.
I believe more research is needed before we can say whether 1) Focke-Wulf planned the DB 600 for the Fw 187 right from the start and 2) Focke-Wulf installed DB 601s in an Fw 187 and flew it successfully up to 630-635km/h. All previous writers on the subject have failed to present a convincing case that either point is accurate.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Hermann and Petrick say (p135 of the 2003 Schiffer edition): "The He 219 was selected over the Fw 187, at least for the night fighter role. Why was this? No official reason has yet been discovered." Well, the official reason has now been discovered.
The revived Fw 187 survived about eight days between the brochure being issued and the project being discontinued.

Great info, Dan. Perhaps a more accurate and less presumptuous book on the Fw 187 is due?

To be fair, it's a standard failing of many single-type or 'monograph' books - particularly on German WW2 aircraft. The writer becomes invested in that one aircraft - it becomes the 'hero' of the story. Anyone who stood in its way was an idiot who clearly didn't understand its outstanding features. Its designers were all geniuses who were far ahead of their time. The Luftwaffe and RLM dismissed it without even giving a reason. Its competitors only succeeded due to alleged bribery, corruption or a personal grudge held by someone in a position of power. You get the idea.
To be even fairer to Hermann and Petrick, writing about the Fw 187 is incredibly tough. Most of what survives relates to the brief 1942 'revival' (so it would be very tempting to focus heavily on this) and most of the 1935-1940 material appears to have been binned by the Allies after the war - only scraps survive. I have an interesting report on the Fw 187's seat from 1936, for example. Then again, there's always the hope that a cache of Fw 187 material with actual useful reports in it has survived somewhere, so who knows.

 

[Arjen]

Without easy access to primary sources, I can only supply what's in my books and what I can find on the internet. I read the wiki-entry on the Fw 187, saw the few sources it listed. Found most of them on my shelves, listed what I found, year of publishing added.
I agree with your points about old secondary sources and the reliability of witness reports. Green's V6 side view I thought to be a nice addition to the thread, I added Wagner's V6 rear view for completeness' sake.

 

[Tony Williams]

Some of the points made here remind me of a paper exercise I produced some years ago, for a British multi-role plane: https://www.quarryhs.co.uk/WW2plane.htm

 

[newsdeskdan]

Without easy access to primary sources, I can only supply what's in my books and what I can find on the internet. I read the wiki-entry on the Fw 187, saw the few sources it listed. Found most of them on my shelves, listed what I found, year of publishing added.
I agree with your points about old secondary sources and the reliability of witness reports. Green's V6 side view I thought to be a nice addition to the thread, I added Wagner's V6 rear view for completeness' sake.

We find ourselves today in the interesting position of being unable to rely on much of what we previously thought of as 'facts' about famous German WW2 aircraft. The style of writing employed in the 60s, 70s and 80s left no room for doubt - everything was presented by authors as though it was definitely correct. There was very little 'but evidence for this is scant' or 'the date of this is unknown'. Nobody ever wanted to admit that they didn't know something. And a generation of unquestioning authors followed who simply repeated what their predecessors wrote. Readers had (and in many cases still have) no idea that what they were reading might be - for want of a better expression - guesswork on the author's part.
Straying off topic somewhat, a good case study is the work of Richard Meredith - author of the 'Phoenix - a Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945' books. When the first of these massive volumes appeared, there was an outpouring of praise and acclaim for this incredible work which seemed to lift the lid on the earliest years of the German air force. Judging by what I see online, serious academic historians today use Meredith when writing their academic texts etc.
I bought a copy of it (and subsequently Vol. 2), thinking it would be amazing to have such an authoritative source to refer to. Then, with mounting horror, I read Meredith's disclaimer about his sources (see below). Meredith is quite open about the fact that his books include little or no primary source research. They are effectively compilations of what's been written in earlier books. He even sought permission (as you can see later on in the book) to quote hefty chunks directly from those earlier books. Where those inaccurate old books 'clash', rather than do some research in period documents to try to find the correct account, "the author has necessarily made a judgement" and alternative views are included in the footnotes.
It's appalling, really, that serious historians are now using fragments of Green's book, bits of Koehler etc., which are verifiably wrong, in their work simply because Meredith has dredged them up and put them back out in a sort of 'greatest hits' of inaccuracy. This is how myths and legends about aircraft such as the Fw 187 keep on being repeated.

.

 

[blackkite]

Hi! More V6 image. I want to see V6 three side view drawing.

 

[blackkite]

Hi! A-0.
http://www.luftwaffephotos.com/lfw1871.htm

 

[Hood]

Yes, all too often in discussions on German aircraft we reach Green and Kay and find ourselves in an unsubstantiated cul-de-sac.
Sadly, as Dan points out, without primary sources a newer and more accurate account is harder to put together. All we can do is critically evaluate what evidence have.

Rudiger Kosin in The German Fighter since 1915 (Putnam, 1988), and probably, though I have no evidence, in the German-language original Die Entwicklung der deutschen Jagdflugzeuge (Bernard & Grefe Verlag, Potsdam, 1983) also confirms the V6 has having the DB 600 with evaporative-cooling. He mentions the engines had 35% more more than the Jumo 210 but does not give any performance details or further information. Indeed I have probably already quoted the majority of what he had to say on the type.

Kosin provides a list of German-language books consulted; around 24 works by people such as Pawlas, Nowarra, Galland but even German imprints of British-writers like Christopher Chant and David Irving.
There is also a list of English-language books; 12 works that includes general stuff like RV Jones Most Secret War, a good dose of Green, Mikesh and Eric Brown.

Kosin had a wide industry career during the war and after (Rechlin, director of aerodynamic design at Arado, Fokker, Wright Air Development Center, Northrop, director of preliminary development at MBB), he even wrote one of the RAF intelligence reports from Oct 1945 to May 1946 and spent 5 months at the British Interrogation Centre in Wimbledon - a neat link to Dan's point above.
He quotes some RLM reports but its unclear whether he has done the primary research himself or simply gleaned them from the other works cited. The fact that there is no list of primary sources at all suggests the latter.

In the foreward he states:

My requests for permission to use pictures and documents have been answered in a friendly and helpful way by more than fifty individuals... The text is based exclusively on accredited documents, the author's own memory, and the memories of those personally involved, for whose credibility the author can vouch. Performance figures are only stated where they are based on official documents; company figures have not been used.

So its a mish-mash of sources and memories, how he vouches the credibility for other people's memories is not clear.

The only Fw 187 performance data provided is a table of the 680hp Jumo 210D powered V1 and presumably is from an official RLM report:
All-up weight: 3,850kg
Maximum speed: 457km/h at ground level; 496km/h at 4,000m; 478km/h at 6,000m.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Kosin had a wide industry career during the war and after (Rechlin, director of aerodynamic design at Arado, Fokker, Wright Air Development Center, Northrop, director of preliminary development at MBB), he even wrote one of the RAF intelligence reports from Oct 1945 to May 1946 and spent 5 months at the British Interrogation Centre in Wimbledon - a neat link to Dan's point above.
He quotes some RLM reports but its unclear whether he has done the primary research himself or simply gleaned them from the other works cited. The fact that there is no list of primary sources at all suggests the latter.

Kosin was an interesting character and Arado was an interesting organisation - quite different from the other big name German aircraft manufacturers. Arado was basically a doormat for the RLM, with its resources at the German government's disposal with no ifs or buts.
In manufacturing terms, this meant Arado's factories were building Fw 190s, for example. In design terms, Arado was rather like the VW Beetle in those old Top Gear episodes - where the company would be a 'backup' in case the other manufacturers failed to come up with an acceptable design, which they never really did (two examples: the schnellbomber competition which produced the Do 335 - Arado's entry was the E 530, which was roundly dismissed by all concerned, also the Volksjaeger competition, where the E 580 was roundly dismissed by all concerned).
The Arado design office seems to have become a sort of 'hub' in 1944 and its resources were allocated to provide support for other manufacturers. I have design drawings of both the He 343 and Ju 287 on Arado company paper, for example.
One company that doesn't seem to have received any Arado support, however, is Focke-Wulf. FW got most of its support from various French companies - even going as far as to bring the French designers over to Germany and set them up in their own office.
Kosin seems to have risen through the ranks at Arado during the war, to the point where, in early 1945, he was appointed to the panel assessing the Langstreckenbomber/Grossbomber designs (P 1107, H XVIII and Ju 287). However, I don't think he was in a position to have any inside knowledge on the Fw 187 during the period 1935-1940. I suspect you're right Hood - his 'facts' on the type came from other people's work, most probably from Conradis.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Yes, all too often in discussions on German aircraft we reach Green and Kay and find ourselves in an unsubstantiated cul-de-sac.
Sadly, as Dan points out, without primary sources a newer and more accurate account is harder to put together. All we can do is critically evaluate what evidence have.

Also - that's not necessarily all we can do. I've never really bothered to research the Fw 187 in detail before. It always seemed like a 'built' type about which everything was already known (although that's apparently not entirely correct!). I've thus far concentrated on projects and previously unknown stuff. It might be that there is fresh Fw 187 material out there to find if I concentrate on looking for it. The low-wing single-seat 2xBMW 801 F-powered fighter of Feb 43 (a sort of Fw 187/Ta 154 hybrid) is something Hermann and Petrick didn't have, so that's something. Maybe I (or someone else) will get around to it one day!

 

[sienar]

imho one of the interesting unknowns is the testing done in Norway/Denmark with the 187 during 1940/41 with JG77. This could be simple weapons, radiator, ect testing in field conditions.

However, at the same time, captured Curtiss Hawks were being evaluated in Norway. Supposedly this was being done to figure out if the type was suitable for use as an advanced trainer for the luftwaffe and selling the aircraft to Finland. Might FW have been doing a field evaluation for similar reasons, ie selling the 187 to Finland or some other Axis power?

I have three books that claim the Fw 187 V6 had DB 600A engines
- Warplanes of the Third Reich by William Green, Doubleday 1970
- German Aircraft of the Second World War by J.R. Smith and Antony Kay, Putnam 1972
- Kurt Tank - Konstrukteur und Testpilot bei Focke-Wulf (Die Deutsche Luftfahrt #1) by Wolfgang Wagner, 2nd edition, Bernard & Graefe 1991 - 1st edition 1980

All authors write the V6 reached a speed of 630 to 635 km/h on trials. Wagner writes that speed was reached 'am Boden' - at ground level (!). Skin buckling, cooling problems are reported by all.
Wagner writes surface evaporative cooling was adopted on the V6 after a suggestion from the RLM. Wagner writes Tank had doubts about the operational use of such cooling.
Green, Smith & Kay all suggest the use of surface evaporative cooling was Tank's own idea.

Side view of V6 from Green, rear view of V6 from Wagner.
Unfortunately, none of the authors provide sources.

Actually I think its possible to confirm the V6 was DB powered on the basis of photos alone. Look at the picture Blackkite in post #85, the one that shows the engine. I'm reposting it here just so there is no confusion;

The ducted spinner, its location(thrust line) and placement of the radiator(?) and oil cooler on the underside match up with the alleged V6 photo, which I'll again repost to avoid confusion.



Now look at what the Jumo looks like;


Compare this to what the DB600 looked like;


The DB600 is a near perfect match to what is shown in that photo, while the Jumo is way off. So I think it can be confirmed that a DB600 was at least fitted to the 187. Now did the aircraft fly with it? That is another question.

 

[newsdeskdan]

The DB600 is a near perfect match to what is shown in that photo, while the Jumo is way off. So I think it can be confirmed that a DB600 was at least fitted to the 187. Now did the aircraft fly with it? That is another question.

The fact that Fw tried to fit a 187 with 600s in 1939 seems (almost) beyond question. Hermann and Petrick cite Daimler-Benz documents on evaporation cooling for Focke-Wulf (no specific aircraft type given) and one on an 'intake scoop' for the Fw 187 V5 - though they don't offer any archival reference which would allow the documents to be checked.
The issue of V5 versus V6 seems a crucial one to me. Every other author but Hermann/Petrick cites V6 as the DB 600 machine. Hermann and Petrick claim to have a document which says it's V5. Given that Hermann/Petrick have certainly done some archival work at least, there seems less cause to doubt them than the others. That means NONE of the other authors has ever seen an original period document on the V5 or V6 - otherwise they would have got it right - thereby making everything they've written about the 'V6' suspect.
Even Hermann/Petrick have no flight test reports for the V5 - they appear to just anecdotally state that it flew. They even reprint a 1942 list of flights made in Fw 187 prototypes by Kurt Tank himself - which includes nearly all of them... but not the V5 or V6.

 

[nuuumannn]

o be even fairer to Hermann and Petrick, writing about the Fw 187 is incredibly tough. Most of what survives relates to the brief 1942 'revival' (so it would be very tempting to focus heavily on this) and most of the 1935-1940 material appears to have been binned by the Allies after the war - only scraps survive.

This is why I bought the book, because of the dearth of more detailed information out there, not necessarily because of the context that Hermann and Petrick apply the aircraft in. It's kinda like dog-whistle politics, appealing to those who they want it to appeal to, which is highly subjective when even the details contained in the book reveal a different story to the perception the authors want to portray.

 

[nuuumannn]

This is how myths and legends about aircraft such as the Fw 187 keep on being repeated.

That entire paragraph is well-spoken, Dan, but I do believe the Fw 187 has risen in prominence as a result of more recent analysis because of the rise of the internet as a form of information sharing. The same entries for the aircraft appear from multiple authors for years, then all of a sudden it's this wunderkind that could have done everything and changed the course of the war, etc, ad nauseum. As you have mentioned earlier, the dearth of first source information has meant that errors have been perpetuated in the details, which means we have to go trawling through photographs to find out what we want to know, but the rise of speculation surrounding its assumed capabilities is a more modern phenomenon that is subject to continuing bias because of the lack of holistic analysis done on the type over the years, simply because no one had the inclination to do so.

The thing is, attempting to clarify the minutiae of the details, such as determining whether the V 5/V 6 flew with the DB engines or not establishes factual information, but doesn't always offer so much in terms of seeking an accurate heuristic approach to the Fw 187, which is what is subject to the information bias encountered almost everywhere on the net.

I've done quite a bit of reading on the fitting of gun turrets to the de Havilland Mosquito, about which there are very few avenues of exploration left, yet so little has been published about the two turret fighters and there is very little archival information existing about them, to the extent that the subject is almost roundly ignored in published sources, which, about the Mosquito, there are thousands.

My problem is that I live in New Zealand. I am literally at the bottom of the world thousands of miles away from anywhere there might be decent archival material for the subject matter we enjoy on this forum and others, and that means I have to pay for the good stuff and I simply don't have the budget for research right now. I used to live in the UK and worked at aviation museums, so I used to have access to archival stuff, but that was 20 years ago now, and much has changed in that time. Because of life stuff, my focus has changed, so I have to rely on what appears in the book shops. I still do research, but it has to be limited to narrow foci. COVID also means there's no more international travel, which doesn't help the situation at all. The internet sources, for all their failings, do provide food for thought, but this complicates the research process and the net is clouded by bias and misinformation, not that books aren't, but the traps are encountered more easily on the net.

The point of all this is to illustrate the difficulties in research today, even though more information is known and being discovered around the world on these subjects. It's harder to separate the wheat from the chaff now.

 

[_Del_]

There's the idea that it could have been a night fighter variant of the single-seat heavy fighter. Firstly, the specialised fighter had a longer fuselage to the Zerstorer variant, which would have meant a separate production line, not only that but there was no space for radar equipment inside or outside the aeroplane. The typical German radar aerials could not have been fitted in the aircraft's nose, lest they be chopped up by the arc of the aircraft's propellers. Not only that, but space was so limited inside the cockpit that engine instruments were fitted outside the cockpit on the engine nacelles. That doesn't make for good instrument flying. So, our night fighter has one crew member, no radar and a hopelessly unergonomic cockpit environment. The pilot has a massive workload.

All I can think of looking at a picture is how blinding the flash from the MG151's sitting right beside me would be at night haha

 

[newsdeskdan]

I do believe the Fw 187 has risen in prominence as a result of more recent analysis because of the rise of the internet as a form of information sharing. The same entries for the aircraft appear from multiple authors for years, then all of a sudden it's this wunderkind that could have done everything and changed the course of the war, etc, ad nauseum. As you have mentioned earlier, the dearth of first source information has meant that errors have been perpetuated in the details, which means we have to go trawling through photographs to find out what we want to know, but the rise of speculation surrounding its assumed capabilities is a more modern phenomenon that is subject to continuing bias because of the lack of holistic analysis done on the type over the years, simply because no one had the inclination to do so.

I appreciate the insight - which helps to provide a little more context for the puzzling Fw 187 vs DH Hornet performance debate above (frankly, I did wonder what on earth everyone was going on about). I wasn't aware of any burgeoning 'support' for the Fw 187 and 'what if' speculation doesn't interest me much. I am more interested in establishing what did happen during its development and in working out a timeline for that development. Interesting point about the turret fighter Mosquito. You should get your article published in the UK... if you haven't already?

 

[iverson]

The 187 was originally designed for(and eventually flew with) DB600s. A single seat, 1400hp DB 601 powered Fw187 would have been a 400+mph fighter.

The RLM's development charts for the period suggest otherwise.

I wouldn't expect Focke-Wulf to design the Fw187 for more powerful engines. I'm speculating, of course, but:

1. The aircraft started as a private venture. So its designers could hardly have expected to get early (or any) access to the latest engine designs, given the demand at the time.

2. Focke-Wulf's old-fashioned Fw159 had recently lost out to the Bf109, and the company probably wanted to get back in the game.

3. The Fw187 was a single seater and thus aimed at the same role as the Bf109, which was Jumo 210-powered pending the availability of its definitive DB600/601 engine.

4. Given the above, designing the Fw187 around a pair of Jumo 210s makes a certain sense. In a sufficiently compact, light-weight airframe, two lower-powered but proven and readily available Jumos would both outpace current Jumo 210-powered Bf109s and demonstrate DB600 levels of performance immediately, without the delays and development risks associated with a scarce, developmental powerplant.

 

[newsdeskdan]

I wouldn't expect Focke-Wulf to design the Fw187 for more powerful engines. I'm speculating, of course, but:

1. The aircraft started as a private venture. So its designers could hardly have expected to get early (or any) access to the latest engine designs, given the demand at the time.

2. Focke-Wulf's old-fashioned Fw159 had recently lost out to the Bf109, and the company probably wanted to get back in the game.

3. The Fw187 was a single seater and thus aimed at the same role as the Bf109, which was Jumo 210-powered pending the availability of its definitive DB600/601 engine.

4. Given the above, designing the Fw187 around a pair of Jumo 210s makes a certain sense. In a sufficiently compact, light-weight airframe, two lower-powered but proven and readily available Jumos would both outpace current Jumo 210-powered Bf109s and demonstrate DB600 levels of performance immediately, without the delays and development risks associated with a scarce, developmental powerplant.

You raise some interesting points.
1. We know very little about what brochures were being floated by the various engine manufacturers in February 1935 when design work on the Fw 187 commenced. When the Fw 159 was being designed a year earlier, in February 1934, all four initial concepts were designed for the water-cooled BMW 15 with 600/630 PS - whatever that was! We do know that Jumo was fairly aggressively pushing the Jumo 10 (later 210). The earliest mention of the DB 600 in the RLM development charts is on May 8, 1935, when it was specified for the He 113 (redesignated He 118 by November 1, 1935). Everything else at that time had a Jumo 10, BMW VI or an Argus or Siemens engine. If we take the Fw 159 design process as an example, then the Fw 187 was probably designed, at concept stage, with a single engine type in mind.
2. The Fw 159 remained in competition with the Bf 109 for a surprisingly long time. The RLM development chart from July 1, 1936 (with the Fw 187's first flight scheduled for December 1936), shows Bf 109 V1, V2, V3 and 10 x 0-Serie; Fw 159 V1, V2, V3 and 10 x 0-Serie; Fw 259 V1, V2, V3, V4 and ? x 0-Serie (the question mark is there on the chart); Fw 187 V1, V2, V3 and ? x 0-Serie... and He 112 V1, V2, V3, V5, V6, V7, V8, V9 and 8 x 0-Serie.
At this point, it looks as though the He 112 was destined to be the winner - with the Bf 109, Fw 159, Fw 259 and Fw 187 all as potential second-stringers - Focke-Wulf had by no means 'lost' yet. Again, I think this period has been pretty inaccurately portrayed by most historians up to this point.
3. I think the Bf 109 was designed for the Jumo 210 and without consideration for the DB 600. It was commissioned in December 1933 alongside the He 112 and Ar 80 - 20 months before the DB 600 first appears on any RLM development chart. When the DB 600 does appear, it is first specified on a dive bomber (the He 113/118 as mentioned above). Within six months (chart of Nov 1, 1935), it is also being specified on particular prototypes of the Do 17, He 111, Ju 89 and Bf 110, and for all versions of the Fw 57. Based on this, it would appear that the DB 600 was originally thought best-suited to big, heavy, multi-engine aircraft. It only later became apparent that it would also work on lightweight single-seat designs. The Fw 187, as built, was based on a description of April 1, 1936 - at which time the realisation seems to have only just begun dawning that the DB 600 might be acceptable for lightweight manoeuvrable fighters.
4. With the above in mind, this seems reasonable.

 

[nuuumannn]

I appreciate the insight - which helps to provide a little more context for the puzzling Fw 187 vs DH Hornet performance debate above (frankly, I did wonder what on earth everyone was going on about).

Yeah, sorry about dragging that out, I wasn't expecting that taking anywhere near as much space/time as it did. It was a response to a simple comparison between the two and got blown into something else entirely.

As for the Fw 187's factual information, I suspect for you to find accurate first-hand sources you have your work cut out for you as it seems that information comes out sparingly, which has meant that so much hypothesis and fantasising gets done in its place. A trip to the archives throughout Germany is in order.

The turret mosquito article was pitched to Aeroplane Magazine a couple of years ago, but that went nowhere, although the magazine has published other stuff of mine in the meantime, I have had it published in a local aviation spread.

 

[nuuumannn]

It's worth mentioning that the Fw 57 competitor to the Bf 110 had DB 600s. Is there any correlation between that design and the Fw 187?

 

[nuuumannn]

4. Given the above, designing the Fw187 around a pair of Jumo 210s makes a certain sense. In a sufficiently compact, light-weight airframe, two lower-powered but proven and readily available Jumos would both outpace current Jumo 210-powered Bf109s and demonstrate DB600 levels of performance immediately, without the delays and development risks associated with a scarce, developmental powerplant.

I agree with Dan in that it's reasonable, but whether or not the RLM or the Luftwaffe thought it so is something else entirely. Before the war the RLM had very different expectations to what we imagine they might have had with the benefit of hindsight - let's face it, there was no planned invasion of France nor a definite need for a twin-engined high-performance fighter although the shortcomings of the Bf 109's range would have been known about at the time. The Zerstorer concept was for a (realistically speaking) strike reconnaissance aircraft that was supposed to be a fighter escort also, a very tall order considering it was to be a three-seater with an internal bay for cameras as well as carrying an external bomb load. The original spec called for an internal bomb bay - and the RLM wanted it to be a fighter??

One thing that is known is that the RLM plugged for smaller twin-engined tactical bombers as opposed to going full swing into developing four-engined heavies before the war, (although the Bomber A/He 177 was heading down that route) because of the saving in resources and availability of more aircraft being built within a given space of time, so perhaps the extra production time to build twin-engined fighters plus the fact that you could have two Bf 109s for each Fw 187 meant it was not as favourable a choice?

 

[Airborne2001]

The Fw 187 couldn't even match the performance of its closer rivals of the time; the Gloster F.9/37 fitted with 1,000hp Taurus T-S(a) radials achieved 360mph at 15,000ft, weights were similar; the Grumman XF5F and XP-50 with 1,200hp Cyclones managed 380mph at sea level and had a very impressive 4,000ft/min rate of climb; the Westland Whirlwind was another very similar aircraft and much closer in terms of engine power with the 885hp Peregrine and also managed 360mph at 15,000ft but it did climb slower. The Lockheed P-38 was in an entirely different level of performance.

The later twin-engined fighters developed during the war were impressive performers, matching big high-power engines with refined aerodynamics. The Hornet's empty weight was the same as a loaded Fw 187A-0, it had a smooth skin from the wooden monocoque, Redux-bonded Alclad lower-wing surfaces, laminar-flow wings, slim engine nacelles, handed propellers, leading-edge ducted radiators and over 4,000hp from its Merlin 130/131 engines. Nothing was going to match that kind of pinnacle of aerodynamic and engine technology before 1945.

The closest Focke Wulf came was the Ta 154, getting about 400mph at 23,000ft out of two Jumo 213Es and 3,000ft/min climb out of the production A-1 nightfighter, roughly matching what the Mosquito was capable of and both sharing a comparable method of construction. The Ta 154V-1 with Jumo 211N engines did reach 440mph but was a prototype and not a production aircraft or fully equipped.

With the exception of the P-38 with its superior aerodynamics and engine power, none of these late 1930s single-seat twin-engined fighters actually progressed very far nor were they missed, arguably the P-38 had to find its niche too having been designed as an interceptor and then expected to be an escort fighter before finding its forte in ground attack. They were designed as high-altitude bomber-interceptors, a role that soon passed. Even the Hornet found itself mud-moving rather than tussling with single-seat fighters in its brief career. I'm not sure that the concept was missed by any of the combatants, single-engined fighters were superior and cheaper to build and the two/three-seat multi-role twin-engined type was far more versatile to spend wartime resources on.
The Fw 187 could barely fit the pilot, let alone a second crewman, so Focke Wulf was probably best in going back to the drawing board and its not clear that Luftwaffe doctrine had any more place for a single-seat twin-engined fighter than the RAF or USAAC did at the time.

This really isn't a fair comparison. The A-0 version was not the main intended version of the aircraft to do the fighting. There were multiple projects and tested versions with the DB 600, DB 601, DB 605, and even the BMW 801. All these from either tests or speculation gave Germany a fighter on par with the P-38. The A-0 even with the weaker engines itself was doing performance on par with the Hurricane Mk.I and the Bf-109E.

 

[Hood]

This really isn't a fair comparison. The A-0 version was not the main intended version of the aircraft to do the fighting. There were multiple projects and tested versions with the DB 600, DB 601, DB 605, and even the BMW 801. All these from either tests or speculation gave Germany a fighter on par with the P-38. The A-0 even with the weaker engines itself was doing performance on par with the Hurricane Mk.I and the Bf-109E.

I am comparing real aircraft with real aircraft.
We have no reliable data on the V6 with the DB600; historians can't even agree whether it was the V5 or V6 which had the DB600 with evap cooling so its sceptical whether the quoted performance is accurate or true. It may have reached 395mph in level flight, but we don't know for sure at what altitude or how long it maintained that speed or what load it was carrying (certainly an unarmed prototype). A one-off speed run proves nothing.

The DB601, DB605 and BMW801 versions are paper planes with designer's calculations - which very often are never met in reality. Comparing projects with real aircraft is chasing mirages. Speculation is just that, its just as easy for me to handwave and compare with the Gloster F.18/40 Reaper with two-seats, superior armament and a calculated max speed of 390mph at 22,500ft.

No version was the intended version to do the fighting, the RLM didn't order any of them for production, except for the small batch of A-0s and they were the only version used in any sort of service trials (Norway and FW factory defence).

 

[Airborne2001]

This really isn't a fair comparison. The A-0 version was not the main intended version of the aircraft to do the fighting. There were multiple projects and tested versions with the DB 600, DB 601, DB 605, and even the BMW 801. All these from either tests or speculation gave Germany a fighter on par with the P-38. The A-0 even with the weaker engines itself was doing performance on par with the Hurricane Mk.I and the Bf-109E.

I am comparing real aircraft with real aircraft.
We have no reliable data on the V6 with the DB600; historians can't even agree whether it was the V5 or V6 which had the DB600 with evap cooling so its sceptical whether the quoted performance is accurate or true. It may have reached 395mph in level flight, but we don't know for sure at what altitude or how long it maintained that speed or what load it was carrying (certainly an unarmed prototype). A one-off speed run proves nothing.

The DB601, DB605 and BMW801 versions are paper planes with designer's calculations - which very often are never met in reality. Comparing projects with real aircraft is chasing mirages. Speculation is just that, its just as easy for me to handwave and compare with the Gloster F.18/40 Reaper with two-seats, superior armament and a calculated max speed of 390mph at 22,500ft.

No version was the intended version to do the fighting, the RLM didn't order any of them for production, except for the small batch of A-0s and they were the only version used in any sort of service trials (Norway and FW factory defence).

No, I agree with that. I probably should have phrased myself better. I am just saying that possible improvements should not be tossed away, regardless of whether they were intended or not. We obviously will never know for sure how the projected versions of the Fw-187 will perform, but I think that we should at least leave some space open for speculation. Once again though, we should still make the distinction that speculation is not the same as what was tested and flown, like you said.

 

[newsdeskdan]

This really isn't a fair comparison. The A-0 version was not the main intended version of the aircraft to do the fighting. There were multiple projects and tested versions with the DB 600, DB 601, DB 605, and even the BMW 801. All these from either tests or speculation gave Germany a fighter on par with the P-38. The A-0 even with the weaker engines itself was doing performance on par with the Hurricane Mk.I and the Bf-109E.

I am comparing real aircraft with real aircraft.
We have no reliable data on the V6 with the DB600; historians can't even agree whether it was the V5 or V6 which had the DB600 with evap cooling so its sceptical whether the quoted performance is accurate or true. It may have reached 395mph in level flight, but we don't know for sure at what altitude or how long it maintained that speed or what load it was carrying (certainly an unarmed prototype). A one-off speed run proves nothing.

The DB601, DB605 and BMW801 versions are paper planes with designer's calculations - which very often are never met in reality. Comparing projects with real aircraft is chasing mirages. Speculation is just that, its just as easy for me to handwave and compare with the Gloster F.18/40 Reaper with two-seats, superior armament and a calculated max speed of 390mph at 22,500ft.

No version was the intended version to do the fighting, the RLM didn't order any of them for production, except for the small batch of A-0s and they were the only version used in any sort of service trials (Norway and FW factory defence).

No, I agree with that. I probably should have phrased myself better. I am just saying that possible improvements should not be tossed away, regardless of whether they were intended or not. We obviously will never know for sure how the projected versions of the Fw-187 will perform, but I think that we should at least leave some space open for speculation. Once again though, we should still make the distinction that speculation is not the same as what was tested and flown, like you said.

It is rather pointless arguing about the Fw 187 when the Ta 154 was essentially everything that Focke-Wulf learned from the Fw 187 - a more capacious fuselage (with far more options available in terms of fuel capacity, armament, single- or twin-seater, potential to fit a rear-facing gun if desirable), wings specifically designed to take a range of different engines (and the option to fit longer wings as the Ta 254), tricycle landing gear layout etc.
Leaving aside the wooden construction which doomed the Ta 154, the watchword for its design was flexibility. The same basic airframe could be adapted to suit whichever engine might be needed (Jumo 211 N, 211 R, 213 A, 213 E or DB 603 L - the high-wing layout combined with the tricycle undercarriage offered vastly more potential for re-engining), whatever armament might be required (e.g. 2 x MG 151/15 + 2 x MK 103, or 2 x MG 151/20 + 2 x MK 108 or 6 x MK 108 for day fighter, and either of the first two plus two MK 108s angled upwards for night fighter, or some sort of large cannon in 'pulk zerstoerer' config), whatever internal fuel load arrangement might be desirable (within reason) plus bulky electronics in the form of radar etc. - allowing the design to more readily fulfil multiple roles. It was the Fw 187's natural successor.

 

[Dagger]

For what it's worth, a 20 year old article by Dietmar Hermann in Flugzeug Classic of June 2001:

 

[Dagger]

Another article by Dietmar Hermann, in Flugzeug Classic of November 2007: