Luftwaffe concept aircraft?

this site has some interesting ac design that the LW was toying with. some of them i can only believe were in the realm of "concept" craft...like concept cars...not really intended to be built and used but outside the box thinking. interesting nonetheless..

Luft '46 - WWII German aircraft projects

Luft 46 is an excellent site - and a lot of the designs are far less 'conceptual' than you might think. The Ta-183 jet fighter had an influence on later projects, and the Junkers jet bombers were developed in East Germany well into the 50s, culminating in the ill-fated and stupendously ugly Baade 152 airliner...

You have to keep some incredulity when reading some descriptions tho. Estimated performances mean nothing in the realm of real world. Some excellent ideas are on those pages but as you say most of them were simply "concept works" that would've never seen the light, or would've had to be heavily modified in order to properly work in real life.

Excellent site nonetheless.


Re. the Ta-183. Was a brilliant idea and one from which many later fighters took advantage from in a latter stage (yes, the MiG-15 is a distant cousin of the Ta-183). But the Ta183 as it was designed woudl've never been able to work. It's tail unit was compromised and post-war investigation on the model (notably by russian engineering teams) showed that at around 700km/H it would've been subjected to severe buffetting perfectly able to rip the tail apart. So it was not a really viable model ,no matter how ground-breaking and brilliant was.

Tank himself worked on a Ta-183 variant post-war, when working on argentina, the Pulqui II fighter. Unsurprisingly it's tail was completely different from the original model and the design as a whole was mostly overdone by the time the project was cancelled.

RAM said:

the Ta183 as it was designed woudl've never been able to work. It's tail unit was compromised and post-war investigation on the model (notably by russian engineering teams) showed that at around 700km/H it would've been subjected to severe buffetting perfectly able to rip the tail apart.

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Careful, I speculated a couple of years ago that I thought buffeting would rip the tail off the Ta 183 and got into a right old argument

This may be a stupid question but are you familiar with the Pulqui II and how Tank evolved it from the Ta 183?

I am presuming the answer is yes, but I wanted to post this picture 8)

I very much like this Messerschmitt design which is just SO right and remarkably advanced for 1945.

I see strong echoes of the SAAB Lansen in this design but I have never managed to discover if that is coincidental or whether there is more to it. The resemblance of the J-29 to the P1101 also makes me wonder just what SAAB may have got their hands on, and how?

BombTaxi said:

Luft 46 is an excellent site - and a lot of the designs are far less 'conceptual' than you might think.

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It's an interesting collection of drawings and ideas I agree.

But when you have reached the point where you have no resources left to thoroughly design, test evaluate and properly deploy opperationally - nevermind having almost entirely exhausted your pool of skilled airmen capable of begining the testing and deployment - then I think its fair to say most of the ideas there are, at very best, truly 'conceptual'.

I see strong echoes of the SAAB Lansen in this design but I have never managed to discover if that is coincidental or whether there is more to it. The resemblance of the J-29 to the P1101 also makes me wonder just what SAAB may have got their hands on, and how?

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Saab is where most of the German data from the Ta-183 ended up, heavily going into the Tunnan fighter. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some technical input. It's easy to go say similar looking aircraft are related, but its usually just coming up with the same solution to the same problem.

I don't see why that design is advanced for 1945. It has a swept wing and tail surfaces yes. It also has a completely hideous engine inlet location that would be unlikely to work in practice.

yes, the MiG-15 is a distant cousin of the Ta-183

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This myth never goes away. The aircraft don't even look the same apart from having a swept wing and tail. The progression of the MiG-15 design is well documented but widely ignored by those wishing to denigrate Russia and those who think anything German is wonderful.

The biggest problem with just about all of the Luft 46 sketches (its difficult to call them designs) is the lack of engine power. The immediate postwar developments, the Tunnan and Pulqui II had 2-3 times the power available, and the Pulqui still didn't work that well. Unless you have enough power to get to high Mach numbers, the swept wing is not useful. The Canberra was designed in 1944/45 with a swept wing, but this was removed due to the role envisaged, savings a significant amount of weight and avoiding control problems, whilst giving better performance for the role at hand.

UK development went with lower aspect ratio wings and thinner wing sections to reduce drag at higher mach. Those designs were as fast as the Luft 46 sketches whilst avoiding the problems of swept wings.

red admiral said:

Saab is where most of the German data from the Ta-183 ended up, heavily going into the Tunnan fighter. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some technical input.

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Thanks, I thought the layout was closer to the P1101 so I overlooked the possibility of Ta 183 influence, but can see that possibility too, I'll look further into that route.

It's easy to go say similar looking aircraft are related, but its usually just coming up with the same solution to the same problem.

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That reads like a direct quote from several posts I've made in the past, rest assured I know that. I did allow for the possibility when I wrote;

if that is coincidental

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However when a layout that is used for the first time then reappears in a different country after the originator has been defeated in a war and its research archives pillaged, the question is not unreasonable.

I don't see why that design is advanced for 1945. It has a swept wing and tail surfaces yes. It also has a completely hideous engine inlet location that would be unlikely to work in practice.

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Now its starting to feel like you're picking on me, lol

I didn't say it was perfect by any means, but designs don't have to be perfect to be advanced, do they? Its not just the swept surfces, though they are obviously a major feature, there is also the engine being mounted in the rear fuselage giving the us first instance I am aware of that features what became the standard layout for single engined fast jets for more than a decade following this design. I cannot accept your view that the design is not advanced because the intakes are poor. Surely it was all part of the learning curve? Who else had sketched out a design, in 1945, that, modified intakes notwithstanding, would have looked acceptably modern in 1960? Note, I don't mean state of the art. Aircraft like the Hunter and Mystere IV were still considered modern in 1960. Aircraft like the Meteor, P-80 and Vampire (even the Venom) were not. To me that makes it an advanced concept.

I completely agree regarding the MiG 15 however. This is one of those myths that never goes away and makes me groan whenever I see it.

I am not one of those fantasists who thinks that luft 46 shows how Germany was on the verge of winning the war. I am perfectly aware that the design I posted, for example, would still need years of development for it to work properly. However I repeat, this looks like the blueprint for the next decade of fighter design and nobody, as far as I know, had got this far or got it so basically right, before the war ended. If only just, as this was drawn in April 1945.

red admiral said:

This myth never goes away. The aircraft don't even look the same apart from having a swept wing and tail. The progression of the MiG-15 design is well documented but widely ignored by those wishing to denigrate Russia and those who think anything German is wonderful.

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wow chill out dude. You're putting things in my mouth that I never said (or would say).

Now don't go ballistic and consider what I said. The Ta-183 project, materials, documentation and even some of the engineers working on it was captured by the soviets. They put it all through intensive testing, they built a wind tunnel model (thats how the aerodynamic fault with the tail was found) to try its configuration, they extensively used the swept wing research done by the germans and in this case FW, to understand it's effects on the plane better.

And then they all used that information available to them to help them designing the MiG-15 as an indigenous fighter, based on previous indigneous soviet first-gen jets.

THAT is "being a distant cousin". I didn't say the Russians took the 183 and copied it. I didn't say they used it as the base for the MiG-15. All I said is that they are direct, but distant, "relatives", because they share a good deal of common roots, because the MiG-15 relied, heavily, on captured german data much of which was also used on the Ta-183.

Now, you tell me, am I wrong in my assesment?. Am I denigrating the russians?. Am I saying everything german is wonderful (When in this same thread I said the Ta-183 was unworkable in that configuration, and that Luft46 concepts should be taken with a grain of salt)?.

Calm down, chill, dude. You've really overreacted on this one.


All the best.

Thanks, I thought the layout was closer to the P1101 so I overlooked the possibility of Ta 183 influence, but can see that possibility too, I'll look further into that route.

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It was more the aerodynamic data on swept wings that found it's way to Sweden rather than designs as such.

Surely it was all part of the learning curve?

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The problem comes as to where you draw the line between advanced and fantastic. Sanger sketched out an idea for a hypersonic spaceplane bomber. Advanced? You could say that, but also completely impractical. You can leap ahead 1 or 2 generations and get a design which is "advanced" but if you don't go through those design generations it probably won't work. You've also got to bear in mind what is just common sense. Engine towards the rear nicely balances the aircraft and allows for a higher fineness ratio allowing for lower drag at high speeds. It doesn't take any great flash of vision to see that. And the fact remains that without powerful engines you're not going to actual get up to the speeds to make those features useful.

An immediate postwar example would be Barnes Wallis' variable geometry designs. They look great and seem really advanced. They even worked (more than can be said for most of the Luft 46 stuff) with Wild Goose going supersonic. Just impractical for an actual aircraft. Advanced? difficult to say that, but they laid the technical groundwork for vg in Tornado.

wow chill out dude. You're putting things in my mouth that I never said (or would say).

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My comments were general rather than pointed at yourself. I haven't seen much reliable evidence to see links between the Ta 183 design and the MiG-15. Most of the technical data went to Sweden. You've got to take into account that the Soviets are already flying a swept wing test aircraft (MiG-8) in 1945. It's difficult to see just how much input the Ta-183 had. As an engineer you'll take as much data as possible to see what approaches others have used. Its the stretch between that point and "the Germans designed the MiG-15" where things become dubious.

In a way you almost make my point for me. The Sanger spaceplane was one of a great many imaginative but wholly impractical schemes in Germany in 1945. Many of their design features seemingly pulled out of thin air, if not a comic book.

This design is patently not one of those. It comes at the end of a very clear, and properly researched, pathway via the Me 262 and P1101 that ran concurrently with the 'tailless' family between Me 163 and P1112.

You say at the layout is more common sense than advanced. I am saying it is advanced because it is so logical, rather than the fanciful crap that most other designers were coming up with. Have you seen some of the unbuilt early jet designs, not just luft 46, but any country up until at least 1950?

Yet here Messerschmitt had it all figured out, well before anyone else. That is what I feel makes this design 'advanced'. The engine argument is a complete red herring. It was clearly designed to take forthcoming engines rather than current ones. This design is not a mad desperation war saver, but a proper evolution of the state of the art that was meant to go through a proper development cycle. It may even have been drawn as a job application for after the war (personal theory)

I swear I refreshed the page and there was nothing there. Server trouble?

dp

dp

Waynos said:

dp

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Luft '46 is a great site, but as has been noted, the planes described in it vary in their "reality". Some of them represent concrete designs which would have almost certainly seen service if the war had continued to concept designs that were so crude and speculative that they amount to little more than wild sketches on napkins. But the site owner makes a very good effort to differentiate between the two and has assembled lots of excellent, well-researched, data. The 3D illustrations by a variety of artists are priceless.

One of my favorite potentially "real" planes on the site is the Messerschmit Me-329 heavy fighter, a Lippisch-designed tailess alternative to the Me-210/410 that got as far as mock-up stage.

I'd really like to see an equivalent site devoted to US, British, and Russian paper designs/concepts.

Have you seen the 'secret projects' series of books? there are 4 volumes of British, three of German, two Soviet and one each of US and Japanese projects (so far) plus generic volumes on flying wings and flying saucers. Very interesting. Probably the biggest eye opener for me was the volume on British hypersonic projects.