AR-234 Windshield

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M

MIflyer

1st Lieutenant
6,608
13,127
May 30, 2011
Cape Canaveral
The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum has a restored Arado AR234. I first saw the airplane at the Sliver Hill restoration facility over 30 years ago and they pointed out something especially interesting. When the Smithsonian received the airplane windshield had a sizeable hole in it, but they were actually able to patch that hole and blend the Plexiglas patch in so well that you can't tell where the damage was. Remarkable!

 
How many of y'all know that the He-111 had a feature so that the pilot could jack his chair up so that his head pushed away part of the canopy and let him fly open cockpit style? I guess that it would be a real nightmare if that long streamlined nose fogged up or iced over when you were trying to land.
 
The yoke would not go up that far.
 
Early in WW2 it was a common thing for aircraft to have a "clear vision panel" that enabled the pilot to reach out and wipe the windshield or whatever. Recall that this was in the era when cars had vent windows, so maybe it seemed to be a natural thing to do. Being able to open the canopy when you needed some fresh air or just a little more room was a useful feature, as this authentic combat footage reveals. As for me, the only time I got a map anywhere near an open canopy, it departed very quickly.

 
I like vent windows and I have worn out the electric window on my 97 Celica three times due to my quest for fresh air. But I suspect they are unacceptable from the security standpoint. Not that hard to jiggle that little window open or even break it, and after you do, you're in the car.

And vent windows were not unique to cars. Obviously you could not open that P-51A canopy to get some air if were moving.

 

I knew. The reason was that when the He 111H was introduced, visibility on the ground through that tunnel of flat panes was terrible in both sunny and rainy weather. This is one of several factors that made the He 111 something of a compromise bomber, with idiosyncrasies unique to it that came about because of its dual airliner/bomber airframe. The bombs were stored vertically in cassettes plonked in the cabin, from where they fell through cut outs in the fuselage floor. The bomb bay doors were rubber sheets stiffened with ali strips. This was to stop damage to the bombs' fins as they fell vertically from the bays. The doors were opened and closed with a Bowden cable, but because they were rubber, didn't sit flush with the underside and flapped about in the slip-stream. Another oddity was that the side gunner had to stand with his legs apart above the ventral bath, where the rear gunner was supposed to lie.

Gatow 168
 
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