Most successfully repurposed aircraft of World War Two.

l'Omnivore Sobriquet said:

Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condor was built as an airliner, then turned into a very good LR maritime patroller and bomber. For some time...

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Many of the pre-war German aircraft were built nominally as civil aircraft, be it airliner or transport, but that was never their intended end use.
It did lead to some odd compromises, check the bomb "cells" on an He 111 for an example.
Cheers
Steve

stona said:

Many of the pre-war German aircraft were built nominally as civil aircraft, be it airliner or transport, but that was never their intended end use.
Steve

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Yes and this is why I single out the Condor. It was indeed designed as an airliner, and used as such. Not just 'nominally'.

Besides I've always wondered about the hard nosed, civil transport variant of the He-111... that did fly with I think one built. Although with weaker engines, which made it a more economical machine, I still think that with the standart package and beautifully shaped 'classic' fuselage, it would have made a hell of a v.i.p transport...

[it remains true in your post that the civil official purpose of some WWII German aircraft did have some ackwards results.]

It would be hard to beat the VC-10. Undoubtedly designed as an airliner it was one of the mainstays of the RAF's tanker fleet (amongst other things) until very recently.

De Havilland Comet to Nimrod is a similar story of a successful conversion to a totally different role.

Obviously not WW2 !!

Cheers
Steve

DC3 to C47?

pattle said:

DC3 to C47?

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Shouldn't that be DC2/DC3 to C-47 and many other C-?.

Maybe it should, but I was only thinking of Douglas militarising the DC3 and getting the C47 as a result, I can't remember if the DC3 was designed to be later militarised in the way it was or whether it's conversion was a happy coincidence.

I would vote for U-2 (or Po-2 as you like) made as the initial trainer was used for Reconnaisance, Liason, Had Ambulance and VIP versions and of course mostly known for secret Night Bombing (Night Witches)

tengu1979 said:

I would vote for U-2 (or Po-2 as you like) made as the initial trainer was used for Reconnaisance, Liason, Had Ambulance and VIP versions and of course mostly known for secret Night Bombing (Night Witches)

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Indeed! I had forgotten about that workhorse!

I think a promiant contender from the germasn has to be the Ju88. Its roles are legion and its effectiveness unquestioned. its a worthy adversary for the Mosquito at this title.

How about the Japanese N1K1? It was designed as a seaplane, but modified to be one of Japan's best landplane fighters.

My nomination is the Piper Cub/L-4. Started life as a light weight fun civil aircraft and ended up as a fearsome, battle winning (no kidding) weapon of war. Fought valiantly in two wars!

The Ju88 gets my vote. Designed for one specific task and carried out many

The Grumman TBF - Eastern Aircraft TBM deserves mention here. It was conceived as a carrier-based torpedo bomber. It ended up as a jack of all trades. For the US Navy it was "a place to put your stuff" in George Carlin-speak. It was a sub-hunter-killer, an electronic signals warfare ship. Distant early warning platform. Magnetic airborne detector, a carrier on-board delivery vehicle. The only roll that it didn't excel in was as a navigation trainer in the Bermuda Triangle, and that's only because the space aliens showed up and "borrowed" the aircraft.

The De Havilland Mosquito and the Junkers Ju 88 were successfully used in more roles than any other WWII aircraft. If I had to choose one, it would be the Mosquito for its notably superior performance.

I have to agree with the Ju 88 too, and the Bf 110; more so the latter since it was not successful in its intended role, although the role itself is questionable, not the aircraft - which was an excellent design. The Ju 88 was a success as a fast bomber when it entered service and its subsequent development into the '188, 288 etc - as well as the variety of roles it eventually carried out - meant the original premise was a good one.

Started life as an unarmed recon machine, then as a bomber, then as a NF then as a FB.

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The Mosquito is harder to place in this category; it was designed from the outset as a high speed unarmed bomber; the first version to enter service was the PR Mossie, but, from the outset GdeH intended it to be a bomber. It also proved an excellent bomber, so its original purpose is not under question. A large part of the Air Staff's reluctance to aprove the D.H.98 was that they did not believe GdeH's calculated figures, stating that it would not reach the speeds calculated on the engines provided and were wary of authorising its continuation as a result. It was initially proposed by them that the D.H.98 was built with a tail turret and the unarmed aircraft should be completed as an aerodynamic testbed only. Luckily and largely thanks to Freeman, the tail turret armed Mosquito was not pursued.

One aspect of the Mossie's development that is often misconstrued was the opposition to an unarmed bomber; there were many in high places that were in favour of the advances of a 'Speed Bomber' as the idea was called; a requirement for an unarmed high speed bomber reconnaissance aircraft was placed with Blackburn as the B.28, a private veture concept based on the Botha (!) on a similar timeline to the D.H.98 and approval was given to build it. Only a mock-up was completed, however. Some of the reluctance to proceed with the D.H.98 comes from the fact it was initially conceived solely as a bomber; once GdeH investigated its potential as a reconnaissance machine and night fighter - to which the design was recommended for an up and coming requirement - was the D.H.98 more palatable to the Air Staff.

Oh, and the Polikarpov U-2 gets my vote too.

I accept that there were doubts about the Mosquito reaching the calculated performance numbers. however, I think a bigger drag on its acceptance was the very concept on which it was proposed. At the time of its conception the RAF did not believe that speed/no armament combination was a survivable or useful concept, and that is reflected in its heavy bomber programs like the Stirling. The RAF very much believed in day bombing, large well armed pondering behemoths were thought to be the only way possible. thats a concept still believed in by many in this place, I might add.

The DH98 reversed and challenged conventional wisdom in so many ways, even in the concept of how bombing ougt to be undertaken. It relied on its speed and its accuracy, at the expense of any defensive rmament. It relied on wooden construction, something that should have made it weak and vulnerable. The Mosquito proved itself to be an accurate precision bomber, with low casualty rates and high accuracy. These were all things that confounded the air staff, and took them a long time to believe in. Once they did, there was no stopping the Mosquito.

One of the lesser known beliefs working against the Mosquito was its susceptability to weather and general wear and tear. The conventional wisdom says that a wooden aircraft could not operate in wet conditions....it would deteriorate because the plymax bonding would give way. It was also claimed that wooden construction would, inherently have a short life. Further, it is often claimed that specialist skill are required to maintain them. None of this was true (at least on a permanent basis). The bonding material did give way in the earlier Mossies, but it was easily rectified, with a newer, water resistant type. As far as longevity is concerned, the last flights in active service for the mosquito in western airforces were 1962!!!! Longer in some smaller air forces. The mossie being restored in NZ does need a lot of structural restoration, so in the sense the airframe cant last 70 years, well, that I would concede.

As far as specialist skills are concerned, or not easily repaired, well, in the case of the Australian built Mosquitoes, it was quite literally the same workers that built aircraft like the Beafort at CAC, that also built the Mosquitoes. Dont know about field repairs.....one would think new skills might be needed to patch up a damaged mosquito

I think a bigger drag on its acceptance was the very concept on which it was proposed. At the time of its conception the RAF did not believe that speed/no armament combination was a survivable or useful concept, and that is reflected in its heavy bomber programs like the Stirling.

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I can't say I entirely agree to this, although the argument is sound, the likes of B.12/36 is evidence of that, but as I stated earlier, the resistance to the concept of an unarmed bomber was not as great in the pre-war Air Ministry as is often made out. Both R.N. Liptrot and Ludlow Hewitt were supporters of the concept of a 'Speed Bomber' - as LH put it pre-war. This was down to a paper that Volkert of Handley Page had prepared about a high speed unarmed bomber concept in May 1937 that was written to be deliberately provocative, rather than to produce a working design. As a result, the Chiefs of the Air Staff actually agreed to a formal specification for a high speed bomber, but the Operational Requirements department stated that such an aircraft would not enjoy any significant benefits over what was being produced, despite Volkert's paper and the support it had.

In August 1939 Ludlow-Hewitt again voiced his support for a speed bomber and demanded that it receive the highest priority, but it was Sholto Douglas that displayed opposition to LH, although he had authorised the development of the Blackburn B.28 by then. Both Sholto Douglas and Tedder opposed the D.H.98's lack of armament, which led to the idea of a tail turret. Liptrot's opposition to the D.H.98 came from disbelief of its performance figures, but he came to support it once GdeH offered a night fighter version to F.21/40. Further high speed bomber projects existed at the time, including a high speed Beaufighter derivative and also latterly the Hawker P.1005, which was cancelled once the Mosquito had demonstrated its excellent qualities in service, although the official reason was that priority was to be given to the Typhoon.

Don't forget the B-24 made a great cargo/transport and tanker over the Hump as the C-87 and C-109

I quite like the PBY Catalina, it did a variety of jobs quite well!

The Handley Page Sparrow a transport modification of the Harrow bomber, they look archaic but the RAF kept them in service till the end of the war in Europe when they could have any number of Dakotas so it must have been useful.