Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154 / Ta 254

[Justo Miranda]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

Some additional info here

 

[Justo Miranda]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

Post -2

 

[sgeorges4]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

thank justo,now I'll bought my second revell ta 154/Fw 190 mistel.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

 

[sgeorges4]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

I want to know why that nose for the project II with SH 3000.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

Competition with Ju 88 Misteln

 

[dan_inbox]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

why that nose for the project II with SH 3000.

To trigger the detonation of the explosive charge at the right time.
This Ta-154 is a "kamikaze", suicide drone to crash on ships or other high-value targets.

 

[sgeorges4]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

ok

 

[sgeorges4]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

is this project can take a focke wulf 190 D?(It seem to be a dora on the schema[?]):

sorry for my english,I'm french but I will improve my english with this forum.

Just want to know if the fw 190 on the scheme is a dora or a A like it's suggest by the top of the document.

 

[Apteryx]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

is this project can take a focke wulf 190 D?(It seem to be a dora on the schema[?]):
sorry for my english,I'm french but I will improve my english with this forum.

Just want to know if the fw 190 on the scheme is a dora or a A like it's suggest by the top of the document.

I would assume it's an A-8, since that's what the drawing title declares. Plus--I can think of no reason why you'd select a "D" model over an "A" for this job.

 

[sgeorges4]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

ok,I'll take the A8.

 

[iverson]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

why that nose for the project II with SH 3000.

To trigger the detonation of the explosive charge at the right time.
This Ta-154 is a "kamikaze", suicide drone to crash on ships or other high-value targets.

It is not exactly a kamikaze--the pilot was intended to eject prior to detonation, as shown in the drawing just above. The nose shape itself indicates a Mistel-type shaped charge warhead with a long, stand-off fuse to insure that the charge explodes far enough from the target to insure maximum penetration.

 

[dan_inbox]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

It is not exactly a kamikaze--the pilot was intended to eject prior to detonation, as shown in the drawing just above. The nose shape itself indicates a Mistel-type shaped charge warhead with a long, stand-off fuse to insure that the charge explodes far enough from the target to insure maximum penetration.

As I understand it, the pilot would not eject from the FW-190, but "jettison" the Ta-154 which would go on to crash onto the bridge or ship or whatever. Then he flies back with the FW-190.
That's why I wrote "the Ta-154 is a kamikaze drone" --only the Ta-154 , not the whole Mistel.

The ejection scheme you describe is that of the Pulkzerstörer variant, anti-bomber-formation. In a Pulkzerstörer, the pilot would be at altitude and able to eject.
In a Mistel, after setting the course into the ground target, he would be too low.

 

[iverson]

Re: Focke Wulf (Tank) Ta 154

It is not exactly a kamikaze--the pilot was intended to eject prior to detonation, as shown in the drawing just above. The nose shape itself indicates a Mistel-type shaped charge warhead with a long, stand-off fuse to insure that the charge explodes far enough from the target to insure maximum penetration.

As I understand it, the pilot would not eject from the FW-190, but "jettison" the Ta-154 which would go on to crash onto the bridge or ship or whatever. Then he flies back with the FW-190.
That's why I wrote "the Ta-154 is a kamikaze drone" --only the Ta-154 , not the whole Mistel.

The ejection scheme you describe is that of the Pulkzerstörer variant, anti-bomber-formation. In a Pulkzerstörer, the pilot would be at altitude and able to eject.
In a Mistel, after setting the course into the ground target, he would be too low.

Agreed. I was merely objecting that the term "kamikaze" implies suicide by the pilot, which is inaccurate as a description of either configuration.

 

[sienar]

Are there any good drawings of the annular radiator installation? Preferably cross sections.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Here

 

[newsdeskdan]

Are there any good drawings of the annular radiator installation? Preferably cross sections.

For which aircraft? Ta 154 A?

 

[Justo Miranda]

Fw 190 V32/U1... Ta 153???

 

[newsdeskdan]

Fw 190 V32/U1... Ta 153???

Justo, your drawing is from the Ta 152 H brochure (albeit with the original caption chopped off and a new one with the same wording added), although the Ta 254 A-1, A-2 and A-3 did use the Jumo 213 E.
I was asking Sienar which aircraft he wanted drawings of the annular radiator installation from. The earliest Ta 154 design, just after the redesignation from Ta 211, had the Jumo 211 F. Thereafter, the only other Ta 154 designs which didn't use the Jumo 211 (the Jumo 211 N in production) were the V8, V10, V22 and V23, C-1, C-2 and C-3, and the Ta 254 B-1 and B-3 (with the latter being specified with the DB 603 L).

 

[sienar]

Fw 190 V32/U1... Ta 153???

Justo, your drawing is from the Ta 152 H brochure (albeit with the original caption chopped off and a new one with the same wording added), although the Ta 254 A-1, A-2 and A-3 did use the Jumo 213 E.
I was asking Sienar which aircraft he wanted drawings of the annular radiator installation from. The earliest Ta 154 design, just after the redesignation from Ta 211, had the Jumo 211 F. Thereafter, the only other Ta 154 designs which didn't use the Jumo 211 (the Jumo 211 N in production) were the V8, V10, V22 and V23, C-1, C-2 and C-3, and the Ta 254 B-1 and B-3 (with the latter being specified with the DB 603 L).

Photos of the early Vs and production A series show a ring or "achsial" radiator assembly while some FW artwork of the 254 shows what looks like a drum or "trommel" type.

I'm wondering when FW did this change. A similar switch occurred with the 190D to 152, with the D having an ring type and the 152 adopting the drum. Its my understanding that the drum style annular installation was a messerschmitt/DB innovation.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Don't know if these are any help - detail of a Ta 254 A drawing dated June 9, 1944, and some designs for the Ta 154 from over a year earlier.

 

[sienar]

It helps some. Thanks Dan!

 

[Justo Miranda]

Hi

 

[fightingirish]

Just noticed at my local train station newsagent, that there is an article about Focke-Wulf Ta 154 in latest May issue of the German magazine "Flugzeug Classic".
Link: http://flugzeugclassic.de/ausgabe/05-18-die-v1-im-dienst-der-amerikaner

 

[spicmart]

The Ta 514 was supposed to fulfill a day-fighter role as well so such a cockpit, while being lessy draggy, would be detrimental. The pilot's view was unacceptably bad.
So why did Focke Wulf build such a low-lying cockpit?

 

[gawebster]

Seem TQ+XC V-23, which flew with NJG 3 survived the war. Dietmar Hartmann's book says it was powered by the Jumo 213 A. It does seem to show the extended fuselage plug added before the tail. Wonder what happened to it?

 

[sienar]

That looks more like one of Arados side-by-side engine studies.

 

[richard B]

That looks more like one of Arados side-by-side engine studies.

Answer #6 :

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/arado-designations.5373/

 

[spicmart]

How would you rate the flying characteristics of the Ta 154 as it's arguably seen as capable to perform dayfighter duties?
It must have been comparably more agile as other similarly sized twins of which most had bad survivability when going against single-engined
fighter.

 

[spicmart]

Anybody has this book?

 

[Dagger]

It's a new updated English edition (August 2021) of the originally German book
Focke-Wulf Nachtjäger Ta 154 "Moskito" Entwicklung, Produktion und Truppenerprobung from 2006 by the same author.

I have the new English edition with 224 pages A4 size. I never saw the German edition.

TOC attached:

 

[newsdeskdan]

It's a new updated English edition (August 2021) of the originally German book
Focke-Wulf Nachtjäger Ta 154 "Moskito" Entwicklung, Produktion und Truppenerprobung from 2006 by the same author.

I have the new English edition with 224 pages A4 size. I never saw the German edition.

TOC attached:
View attachment 672480

I have this and it's a good book - the best yet written on the Ta 154. However, I believe it has serious problems with layout and structure. To kick things off, on p14 you have the very first concepts produced under the Ta 211 name, but on the opposite page you have three photos of the Ta 154 V1 - the story hasn't got anywhere near mentioning that yet. Then there are two full pages showing new artwork of the Ta 154 V1, completely irrelevant to the story at this point. You have to wait till p19 to see a drawing of the Ta 211, which is then accompanied by two much later drawings of the Ta 154.
Chapter 3 - Baubeschreibung Nr. 265 Ta 154 A-0 should be an appendix. It's completely out of place as a chapter in its own right immediately following the very comprehensive Construction and Production chapter. Also, it's not Baubeschreibung Nr. 265, which I have a copy of. It's a mishmash of unrelated photos and drawings with bits of the actual document interspersed.
I would've been tempted to make Chapter 4 - The Ta 154 A-0 Compared, Jumo 213 and the Ejection Seat another appendix or series of appendices. It completely breaks up the flow of the excellent and informative narrative established in Chapter 2, and at the end are some unrelated drawings of the Ta 154 V1 again, this time by Sengfelder. Frankly, by now, I was sick of the sight of the Ta 154 V1.
Then we have Chapter 6 - Production. But production was supposed to be covered in Chapter 2 - Construction and Production! Really, the words and images in this chapter should've been part of Chapter 2, or Chapter 2 should've been split into two parts. Again, there are pages and pages of pointless illustrations and photos which feel as though they've been crammed in just because they were available - the narrative is broken.
I bought this book to read the story of the Ta 154 and the book's design makes that incredibly difficult to do. You find a small piece of text, read it, then you have to wade through page after page of images (which often aren't related to the text you're trying to read) to find another small section of text, then repeat the process. And then you find you're reading some random tech specs or the text has travelled back in time to discuss something already covered a couple of chapters earlier.
Chapters 8, 9 and 10 should all be the same chapter and as presented they are stuffed with unnecessary padding - a couple of Focke-Wulf technical documents reproduced in full, which could, again, have been appendices if they were to be included at all.
I'm almost tempted to cut out all the bits of text that tell the story of the Ta 154 in chronological order - currently scattered haphazardly across the book's 224 pages - and paste them together, just so I can read the actual book uninterrupted.

 

[spicmart]

Though being a state-of-the-art piston engine design aiming for high speed the Ta 154 did not feature a laminar flow wing profile, something most fighter designers were striving for in (very) late-war designs.
Anybody know why it wasn't applied with the Ta 154? Maybe because of the better start and landing characteristics needed for nightfighters when using a more conventional airfoil?

 

[HoHun]

Hi Spicmart,

Though being a state-of-the-art piston engine design aiming for high speed the Ta 154 did not feature a laminar flow wing profile, something most fighter designers were striving for in (very) late-war designs.
Anybody know why it wasn't applied with the Ta 154? Maybe because of the better start and landing characteristics needed for nightfighters when using a more conventional airfoil?

According to Conradis' "Mit Nerven, Herz und Rechenschieber" the reason was that laminar flow was not considered to be practically viable by German engineers as the inevitable inaccuracies of production as well as the normal dust etc. accumulating on the wings in normal operations would suffice to make the flow turbulent anyway. To even have a theoretical chance of laminar flow, production would have to be considerably more accurate and therefore expensive, and with no pay-off expected, a conventional airfoil was chosen.

Conradis was in industry insider, but he wrote in the faux reportage style typical for the 1950s, which involves a lot of fictional dialogue, so I'm not sure how far he can be trusted.

I believe there's a NACA report on the P-51 laminar flow wing which illustrates the performance loss the laminar flow wing experiences under (simulated) real-world conditions.

(Howver, "laminar" airfoils also seem to have advantages in the transonic regime, and I believe these are not as badly affected by surface roughness as the laminar flow is ...)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[T. A. Gardner]

One thing that always comes up in my mind about this plane is why the Tego glue process couldn't be replicated elsewhere in Germany once the one factory using it was bombed to destruction. Anybody know why that was?

 

[spicmart]

Hi Spicmart,

Though being a state-of-the-art piston engine design aiming for high speed the Ta 154 did not feature a laminar flow wing profile, something most fighter designers were striving for in (very) late-war designs.
Anybody know why it wasn't applied with the Ta 154? Maybe because of the better start and landing characteristics needed for nightfighters when using a more conventional airfoil?

According to Conradis' "Mit Nerven, Herz und Rechenschieber" the reason was that laminar flow was not considered to be practically viable by German engineers as the inevitable inaccuracies of production as well as the normal dust etc. accumulating on the wings in normal operations would suffice to make the flow turbulent anyway. To even have a theoretical chance of laminar flow, production would have to be considerably more accurate and therefore expensive, and with no pay-off expected, a conventional airfoil was chosen.

Conradis was in industry insider, but he wrote in the faux reportage style typical for the 1950s, which involves a lot of fictional dialogue, so I'm not sure how far he can be trusted.

I believe there's a NACA report on the P-51 laminar flow wing which illustrates the performance loss the laminar flow wing experiences under (simulated) real-world conditions.

(Howver, "laminar" airfoils also seem to have advantages in the transonic regime, and I believe these are not as badly affected by surface roughness as the laminar flow is ...)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

But as far as I know the laminar wing profile did give the P-51 an advantage of less all-around drag and go faster than contemporaries despite less engine power and higher parasite drag.
Same with other late designs like the Sea Fury or Spiteful.
So despite these restrictions for true laminar flow mentioned, there had to be some benefit in such a wing.

 

[HoHun]

Hi T. A.,

One thing that always comes up in my mind about this plane is why the Tego glue process couldn't be replicated elsewhere in Germany once the one factory using it was bombed to destruction. Anybody know why that was?

It's mentioned in the abovementioned book, too. The replacement glue was systematically tested and found to give good quality connections, but destroy the wood adjacent to the connection (upon closer inspection). The solution was not actually difficult to find and consisted of using a higher water-to-glue ratio. I'm not sure it had much on an impact on the overall programme, but it seems Göring personally had Tank report on it, confronting him with accusations of sabotage raised by the head of production of the factory making the wings.

(Of course, the way Conradis wrote the book, Tank is always right in everything.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Foo Fighter]

Hi Spicmart,

Though being a state-of-the-art piston engine design aiming for high speed the Ta 154 did not feature a laminar flow wing profile, something most fighter designers were striving for in (very) late-war designs.
Anybody know why it wasn't applied with the Ta 154? Maybe because of the better start and landing characteristics needed for nightfighters when using a more conventional airfoil?

According to Conradis' "Mit Nerven, Herz und Rechenschieber" the reason was that laminar flow was not considered to be practically viable by German engineers as the inevitable inaccuracies of production as well as the normal dust etc. accumulating on the wings in normal operations would suffice to make the flow turbulent anyway. To even have a theoretical chance of laminar flow, production would have to be considerably more accurate and therefore expensive, and with no pay-off expected, a conventional airfoil was chosen.

Conradis was in industry insider, but he wrote in the faux reportage style typical for the 1950s, which involves a lot of fictional dialogue, so I'm not sure how far he can be trusted.

I believe there's a NACA report on the P-51 laminar flow wing which illustrates the performance loss the laminar flow wing experiences under (simulated) real-world conditions.

(Howver, "laminar" airfoils also seem to have advantages in the transonic regime, and I believe these are not as badly affected by surface roughness as the laminar flow is ...)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

But as far as I know the laminar wing profile did give the P-51 an advantage of less all-around drag and go faster than contemporaries despite less engine power and higher parasite drag.
Same with other late designs like the Sea Fury or Spiteful.
So despite these restrictions for true laminar flow mentioned, there had to be some benefit in such a wing.

From my understanding of many different sources, drag difference between the Spitfire and P-51 was give and take and the radiator setup in the P-51 was quite beneficial so the overall result was better speed for the P-51. The Spiteful was considered little if any improvement over the Spitfire.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Hi T. A.,

One thing that always comes up in my mind about this plane is why the Tego glue process couldn't be replicated elsewhere in Germany once the one factory using it was bombed to destruction. Anybody know why that was?

It's mentioned in the abovementioned book, too. The replacement glue was systematically tested and found to give good quality connections, but destroy the wood adjacent to the connection (upon closer inspection). The solution was not actually difficult to find and consisted of using a higher water-to-glue ratio. I'm not sure it had much on an impact on the overall programme, but it seems Göring personally had Tank report on it, confronting him with accusations of sabotage raised by the head of production of the factory making the wings.

(Of course, the way Conradis wrote the book, Tank is always right in everything.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

There is a world of difference between the Tego process (called Duramold or Aeromold in the US at the time), and using phenol based adhesives applied by brush or roller. The Tego et. al., process is streets ahead of the phenol glues both in strength and consistency.

Here's a Fairchild video on the Duramold process they were using. It's essentially the same thing as the German Tego process:

 

[spicmart]

Hi Spicmart,

Though being a state-of-the-art piston engine design aiming for high speed the Ta 154 did not feature a laminar flow wing profile, something most fighter designers were striving for in (very) late-war designs.
Anybody know why it wasn't applied with the Ta 154? Maybe because of the better start and landing characteristics needed for nightfighters when using a more conventional airfoil?

According to Conradis' "Mit Nerven, Herz und Rechenschieber" the reason was that laminar flow was not considered to be practically viable by German engineers as the inevitable inaccuracies of production as well as the normal dust etc. accumulating on the wings in normal operations would suffice to make the flow turbulent anyway. To even have a theoretical chance of laminar flow, production would have to be considerably more accurate and therefore expensive, and with no pay-off expected, a conventional airfoil was chosen.

Conradis was in industry insider, but he wrote in the faux reportage style typical for the 1950s, which involves a lot of fictional dialogue, so I'm not sure how far he can be trusted.

I believe there's a NACA report on the P-51 laminar flow wing which illustrates the performance loss the laminar flow wing experiences under (simulated) real-world conditions.

(Howver, "laminar" airfoils also seem to have advantages in the transonic regime, and I believe these are not as badly affected by surface roughness as the laminar flow is ...)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

But as far as I know the laminar wing profile did give the P-51 an advantage of less all-around drag and go faster than contemporaries despite less engine power and higher parasite drag.
Same with other late designs like the Sea Fury or Spiteful.
So despite these restrictions for true laminar flow mentioned, there had to be some benefit in such a wing.

From my understanding of many different sources, drag difference between the Spitfire and P-51 was give and take and the radiator setup in the P-51 was quite beneficial so the overall result was better speed for the P-51. The Spiteful was considered little if any improvement over the Spitfire.

IIRC the Spiteful with the same propulsion was 40 to 50 km/h faster than a Spitfire. Not enough performance advantage for the RAF to introduce the Spiteful into service apart from its defective handling characteristics.