Me 163 vs. Ta 154: wooden wings

[tomo pauk]

Seems like Me 163 was trouble-free wrt. the wood it used, vs. the Ta 154 that was cancelled because there was no way to have good & strong wooden wings (or so it is often noted).
Anyone might shed some light on this?

 

[Capt. Vick]

You can also add the He 162 in the wooden wings group...did they also have wood glue issues?

 

[ThomasP]

I have read that the Me 163 wings delaminated also, but due to their short operational life time - and resulting low number of flight hours - the deterioration of the wings did not manifest as a problem in operations.

 

[GregP]

Not too sure about the Me 163 wings, but the Planes of Fame has a genuine Mitsubishi J8M1, which was a Japanese copy of the Me 163. While the wings are now delaminating a bit, they were in great shape when Ed Maloney started the Planes of Fame (which actually started as The Air Museum) in early 1957.

It was the first aircraft in the collection and is the only complete survivor of the seven actual aircraft built.

The Planes of Fame replica Me 163B has very good wings, but they were built by George Lucas of Dunda, NY, not wartime slave labor, and are in great shape.

From what I have read, the He 162 wings were sabotaged by the slave labor by thinning out the glue, causing it to lose strength. That was a real issue as the He 162 was fast enough to have dynamic pressure issues and one disintegrated while flying a demo for the Nazi brass. The Me 163 was faster and should have had much greater dynamic pressure issues if the same type sabotage was used. In point of fact, the Me 163 had many issues including exploding fuel, leaking fuel, hard landings due to no undercarriage when landing, and a few other things, but I have not heard of any wing-related issues at all once the Me 163 design was finalized and airframes were built. If the glue was good, I doubt there were other wing issues since they haven't surfaced AFAIK.

It's possible there WERE issues with the wing but, if so, it SHOULD have shown up in regular flight test and/or tests when it was captured, and regular squadron usage (as regular as it was, anyway). I may have missed it, but I have not seen wing delamination issues mentioned anywhere. Perhaps they were overlooked among all the OTHER faults enumerated.

 

[ThomasP]

IIRC the wing delamination was mentioned in the USAF 1946-47 test report on the Me 163. They had planned to actually fly the captured airframe but did not do so when they found the problem.

I might have read it in one of the DTIC reports, but am not sure.

PS Could it have made a difference as to when the wings were built - ie before/after the Tego-Film glue plant was destroyed? I do not know if they used Tego-Film in the construction of the Me 163 wings.

 

[Snautzer01]

IIRC the wing delamination was mentioned in the USAF 1946-47 test report on the Me 163. They had planned to actually fly the captured airframe but did not do so when they found the problem.

I might have read it in one of the DTIC reports, but am not sure.

PS Could it have made a difference as to when the wings were built - ie before/after the Tego-Film glue plant was destroed? I do not know if tye used Tego-Film in the construction of the Me 163 wings.

Messerschmitt Me163

I have never seen before pic 1 and 3 in any publication. T-2-500

ww2aircraft.net

Post-War research was carried out by the USA
Britain, France and the USSR.
United States: tested in 1946 towed by B-29 for unpowered flight. Powered test were planned, but not carried out due to the delamination of the 163s wings.
Aircraft was stored until 1954 and later trasferred to the Smithsonian, were it is on display today.

Britain: Tested the Me 163 in unpowered and
powered flight with the assistance of German technicians. The Me 163 Reached 32,000ft in 2 1/2 minutes what a ride!...

France: Tested in unpowered flight its unknown if any powered flights were carried out.

USSR: The Russians captured a number of 163s
at the Junkers plant plus some trainer models
After the war, unpowered tests were conducted its unknown if any powered test took place.
The supply of T-Stoff and C-Stoff were limited, and if the fuel was available it wasn't enough to use for testing, the fuel was unstable and dangerous, this was a problem all the Allies faced.

Delamination:
Splitting, pealing of layers of the Me 163s wooden wings, this would make the aircraft
dangerous to fly."

 

[tomo pauk]

I have read that the Me 163 wings delaminated also, but due to their short operational life time - and resulting low number of flight hours - the deterioration of the wings did not manifest as a problem in operations.

IIRC the wing delamination was mentioned in the USAF 1946-47 test report on the Me 163. They had planned to actually fly the captured airframe but did not do so when they found the problem.

I might have read it in one of the DTIC reports, but am not sure.

PS Could it have made a difference as to when the wings were built - ie before/after the Tego-Film glue plant was destroed? I do not know if they used Tego-Film in the construction of the Me 163 wings.

We know that the wing of the Mosquito was not a perfect solution, yet these made countless missions. Delamination in 1946 on an aircraft made in 1943 was probably not an issue in 1944?

You can also add the He 162 in the wooden wings group...did they also have wood glue issues?

Not sure. But at any rate, feedback is appreciated.

 

[Engineman]

I believe that the German factory producing a very strong wood glue for the Ta 154 was bombed and there was not a suitable replacement. The alternative glues available were many times less strong in bonding strength. I don't have the reference at the moment.

Eng

 

[yulzari]

I believe that the German factory producing a very strong wood glue for the Ta 154 was bombed and there was not a suitable replacement. The alternative glues available were many times less strong in bonding strength. I don't have the reference at the moment.

Eng

There is more to it than simple bonding strength. Basic hide glue is stronger than the parent wood and good hide glue joints will fail in stress tests by the failure of the wood rather than the glue bond. It is the reliability of application and coping with stress cycles and environmental conditions. Caesin glues were used in WW1 on, say, the Fokker DVIII but had failures due to water ingress. Mosquitos had failures in early models in hot humid conditions when from a particular contractor but changes to staff training and glue type removed the problem. There were alternatives glues for Focke Wulf of very adequate strength, but not resistant to environmental issues nor the stress cycles. Hence the delaminations in use when applied to the airframes mentioned above. Cynically, in service the Luftwaffe wooden fighters were more likely to be shot down than survive long enough for the glue to fail.

 

[ThomasP]

Tego-Film adhesive was manufactured by Th. Goldschmidt AG Essen at their Wuppertal subsidiary. This plant is the one often mentioned as being bombed in 1943. Tego-Film was a phenolic-resin saturated sheet of paper. The paper was used to control the thickness of the glue to prevent uneven shrinkage while ensuring full coverage.

The reason I wonder if Tego-Film was the glue used on the Me 163 is that there was another glue used prior to the Tego-Film, called Kaurit (the British called their version Beetle Cement). As far as I know, this is the adhesive used for most aircraft wood structures in the US/UK/Germany/Italy from the mid-1930s thru WWII. Beetle Cement is what was used on the very early Mosquito and Horsa. DH and AS switched to a combination of Aerolite glue and Beetle Cement (both were urea-formaldehyde resins) for the Mosquito and Horsa from sometime in 1942. (I have never been able to find out exactly when.)

 

[Engineman]

There is more to it than simple bonding strength. Basic hide glue is stronger than the parent wood and good hide glue joints will fail in stress tests by the failure of the wood rather than the glue bond. It is the reliability of application and coping with stress cycles and environmental conditions. Caesin glues were used in WW1 on, say, the Fokker DVIII but had failures due to water ingress. Mosquitos had failures in early models in hot humid conditions when from a particular contractor but changes to staff training and glue type removed the problem. There were alternatives glues for Focke Wulf of very adequate strength, but not resistant to environmental issues nor the stress cycles. Hence the delaminations in use when applied to the airframes mentioned above. Cynically, in service the Luftwaffe wooden fighters were more likely to be shot down than survive long enough for the glue to fail.

Yes, there is more to it than bonding strength. The Ta 154 wooden structure was designed for the superior performance of the Goldmann Tego-Film Phenolic resin laminates and glue product. The whole production of Tego-Film was lost to bombing in a raid on Wuppertal in Feb '43. On the Ta 154 another adhesive was then used, produced by Dynamit AG but it was not suitable and the Ta 154 was not produced.
On the Mosquito, it was designed for and used Caesin based glues on early production. This was later replaced by "Aerolite", a synthetic urea-formaldehyde type glue that was more "Durable".
Info from, German aircraft industry and production, 1933-1945- Vajda & Dancey, and wiki.

Eng

 

[ThomasP]

Hey Engineman,

Are you sure about the Casein glue being used on the Mosquito? My understanding is that DH used Casein for the DH.91 Albatross, but switched to Beetle Cement (at least for the most part) for the production Mosquito. I have run across mention of some problems with the wood delaminating with the Beetle Cement alone, after which they switched to a combination of Beetle Cement and Aerolite adhesive.

 

[Engineman]

Hey Engineman,

Are you sure about the Casein glue being used on the Mosquito? My understanding is that DH used Casein for the DH.91 Albatross, but switched to Beetle Cement (at least for the most part) for the production Mosquito. I have run across mention of some problems with the wood delaminating with the Beetle Cement alone, after which they switched to a combination of Beetle Cement and Aerolite adhesive.

Hi,
Well, I have checked other references and Mosquito by Sharpe and Bowyer, with foreword by Sir Geoffrey De Havilland, has several mentions. First, is that it was a pity that formaldehyde glue was not available from the start. Second, that problems changing of over from casein to formaldehyde glue made decisions to operate Mosquito's overseas difficult, and third, where Mosquito's in India were structurally degrading and those not built with formaldehyde were grounded and scrapped.
If we are lucky, a Mosquito expert can say more.
Cheers

Eng

 

[dedalos]

I am not sure that the loss of the strong glue was after all bad for the German war effort
The Ta154 did not appear to be that much of a improvement over the already in production German night fighters
Certainly could not reliably intercept the mosquito. It's overall performance appears similar to the Me 410 , a plane already in production. It s a mystery to me why the Me410 was not produced as a nf as well.The often mentioned reason( lack of space for equipment) is ridiculous. It had space for 2 500kgr bombs plus the powered gun turrets. Plenty of space.
The ta 154 performance, probably ,could be approached even by the Bf110G with far less development effort and cost. Using Db605AM engines, retractable tail wheel, annular radiators and a cleaner canopy should result to a similar performance with th Ta154

 

[Snautzer01]

If you read this German Luftwaffe Fighter Staff Conference 1944

Post #3 one might get a better understanding why so much project airplanes from all producers were build.

 

[emu27]

IIRC the wing delamination was mentioned in the USAF 1946-47 test report on the Me 163. They had planned to actually fly the captured airframe but did not do so when they found the problem

The Americans did fly the 163 but only as a glider towed by a B-29. They had plans to make powered flights but the wing delamination precluded that, they did comment on the variability of the workmanship in the five 163's they had, and swapped wings to make up an airworthy example.

 

[Snautzer01]

The Americans did fly the 163 but only as a glider towed by a B-29. They had plans to make powered flights but the wing delamination precluded that, they did comment on the variability of the workmanship in the five 163's they had, and swapped wings to make up an airworthy example.

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