Ta183 vs Vampire

[Colin1]

30.18ft (9.20m) :Length: 30.74ft (9.37m)
32.81ft (10.00m) :Width: 40.03ft (12.02m)
12.66ft (3.86m) :Height: 8.83ft (2.69m)
5,247lbs (2,380kg) :Empty Weight: 6,380lbs (2,894Kgs)
9,480lbs (4,300kg) :Max Take-off Weight: 10,494lbs (4,760Kgs)
1 x Heinkel HeS 011 turbojet engine, 3,500lbs thrust :Engine: 1 x deHavilland Goblin turbojet 3,100lbs thrust
1 :Crew: 1
593mph (955km/h) :Max Speed: 539mph (867km/h)
432 miles (695 kms) :Max Range: 730 miles (1,174 kms)
6,100ft/min (1,859m/min) :Rate of Climb: 4,300ft/min (1,311m/min)
45,932ft (14,000m) :Service Ceiling: 41,000ft (12,500m)
4 x 30mm Mk 108 cannons, max 1,000lbs (450Kgs) external ordnance :Armament: 4 x 20mm cannons, max 2,000lbs (907Kgs) external ordnance
5 :Hardpoints: 2

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I do not think we can compare these two aircraft. The Vampire saw service while the Ta 183 never even actually flew. We will never know how the Ta 183. Personally I think the Ta 183 was a better design. It was a more modern design and I think it would have been a better aircraft, but again we will never know. Therefore they can not be compared.

 

[Maximowitz]

If the Ta183 was as unstable as Tank's later Pulqui II design, the only thing it would have killed was its pilots.

 

[Colin1]

Well, no
not operationally anyway but the Pucara never flew against the Whirlwind either

 

[michaelmaltby]

Colin - I'm sure you will know the answer to this - wasn't plywood used in the fuselege portion of the Vampire - same technique as the Mosquito ..?

MM

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Well, no
not operationally anyway but the Pucara never flew against the Whirlwind either

Yes but the Pucara was not the Ta 183, it was only based off of the design. So again, how can we compare an aircraft that was never built with an aircraft that was operational?

 

[Butters]

"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men." Or to shoot down the Vampire, either...

With apologies to Galileo Galilei

JL

 

[lingo]

The Ta 183 fuselage looks abnormally short. Combined with the oversized fin and the sharply swept wings I suspect the design would have experienced severe stability ptoblems.
I trained on the Vampire T11 and managed a few trips in the single seat Mk 5/9s but as far as I know ALL the first generation jets had problems and limitations.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Folks, a few thoughts...

Never judge a book by its cover. Remember fighters are SUPPOSED to be a bit unstable, its a matter of mitigating any problems that would cause the aircraft undue danger to the pilot and the mission and many times this could be carried out by simple airframe modifications and training. When you say "unstable" you need to be specific. Unstable while doing adverse maneuvers? Unstable during normal flight? Unstable during landing? I know may aircraft that fly great straight and level and during 20 and 30 degree banks, but exceed that or start loading the aircraft up and you have a handful. The design was very promising and think it would have worked out.

Mike, the Vampire did have a portion of its nose made from plywood

 

[Colin1]

Yes but the Pucara was not the Ta 183, it was only based off of the design. So again, how can we compare an aircraft that was never built with an aircraft that was operational?

Thing is Adler
if the two flew in combat with each other, we'd have lots of hard data on which was best at what and overall, who was likely to come out on top - so no need for a poll. For a poll to be fun, surely a sprinkling of what-if can do no harm?

Mike, the Vampire did have a portion of its nose made from plywood

Thanks Joe and sorry Mike
just got in from town - umm, and I didn't actually know that

...and this just in

the majority of the Ta183's wings were covered in plywood too

 

[delcyros]

The higher crit Mach figure is in great advantage for the Ta-183. Both planes probably have a somehow nasty low speed behavior. Crit Mach is enough of an advantage to be tactically important in this kind of comparison.

 

[lingo]

Folks, a few thoughts...

Never judge a book by its cover. Remember fighters are SUPPOSED to be a bit unstable,


To a degree they are, but there are aerodynamic forces lurking to crush any high speed deviation. The Vampire had fairly carefree handling characteristics, and buffet prevented it from much exceeding Mach 0.8 but it was a good gun platform at normal combat speeds. We simply do not know how the Ta 183 would have behaved. People can speculate all they like about what it may theoretically have been capable of, but with the tried and tested Vampire we actually know. My personal view is that the German design was an act of desperation and it is fortunate that nobody was called upon to test it.
As for the Vampire, the only foibles as far as I was concerned was a jerky spin with a delayed reaction exit and the need to trim rapidly when flaps were selected. Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed my time on them.

 

[Colin1]

My personal view is that the German design was an act of desperation and it is fortunate that nobody was called upon to test it

I'd say that your opinion was a little wide of the mark
why couldn't it be construed as an act of pioneering aeronautical engineering? If the war had stopped sooner and the Allies had found workshops full of half-finished Me262s, would they have been construed as an act of desperation too?

As for it being fortunate that nobody was called upon to test it - what, not even a test pilot? Surely, when an aeronautical engineer pushes the envelope, someone with the right stuff has got to get up there and see if he's done it right?

 

[Soren]

Just a small correction:

The expected climb rate of the Ta-183 was 6,100 ft/min, not 4,100 ft/min, also seems reasonable considering the higher P/W ratio

And Adler is absolutely right, the Pulqui II Ta-183 cannot at all be compared, they are two very different a/c. On the Ta-183 the fuselage is short narrow and the wing is mid mounted, futhermore pitch was controlled with elevons. The Pulqui II featured a high mounted wing, long wide fuselage (different engine nessicated a completely new design) with pitch being controlled with normal elevators on a high mounted horizontal stabilizer, and this caused deep stall problems which is what plagued the Pulqui II. The Ta-183 wouldn't have experienced this however and the design looks sound.

As for how the Ta-183 Vampire would've done against each other, I can't really say, but the Ta-183's performance would've been higher, which is awlays a plus.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Folks, a few thoughts...

Never judge a book by its cover. Remember fighters are SUPPOSED to be a bit unstable,


To a degree they are, but there are aerodynamic forces lurking to crush any high speed deviation. The Vampire had fairly carefree handling characteristics, and buffet prevented it from much exceeding Mach 0.8 but it was a good gun platform at normal combat speeds. We simply do not know how the Ta 183 would have behaved. People can speculate all they like about what it may theoretically have been capable of, but with the tried and tested Vampire we actually know. My personal view is that the German design was an act of desperation and it is fortunate that nobody was called upon to test it.
As for the Vampire, the only foibles as far as I was concerned was a jerky spin with a delayed reaction exit and the need to trim rapidly when flaps were selected. Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed my time on them.

You proved my point - unless there is some concrete evidence to say the aircraft was "unstable" (again when stating that, let's be specific), I roll back to my original statement, don't judge a book by its cover.

 

[snafud1]

Just a small correction:

The expected climb rate of the Ta-183 was 6,100 ft/min, not 4,100 ft/min, also seems reasonable considering the higher P/W ratio

And Adler is absolutely right, the Pulqui II Ta-183 cannot at all be compared, they are two very different a/c. On the Ta-183 the fuselage is short narrow and the wing is mid mounted, futhermore pitch was controlled with elevons. The Pulqui II featured a high mounted wing, long wide fuselage (different engine nessicated a completely new design) with pitch being controlled with normal elevators on a high mounted horizontal stabilizer, and this caused deep stall problems which is what plagued the Pulqui II. The Ta-183 wouldn't have experienced this however and the design looks sound.

As for how the Ta-183 Vampire would've done against each other, I can't really say, but the Ta-183's performance would've been higher, which is awlays a plus.

I think if you lok closely , the stats for Ta183 are on the left, Vampire right.

 

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

IL Sturmovik is a game, but it did include some interesting information about the Ta-183 in the aircraft guide pdf document.

At a Glance: Engine: 1 x HeS 011 Power: 1,300 kg/s Armament: • 4 x MK 108 cannon Advantages: • High speed; • Ease of production. Disadvantages: • Low-speed control problems due to wing configuration

Pilot Notes:

A captured model of the Ta-183 was tested in the TsAGI wind tunnel post war, and immediately uncovered a fatal mistake in the design. Flutter and subsequent structural failure of the tail unit began at only 700 km/h. Therefore we've had to artificially strengthen the tail unit by a great amount, in order to allow for the design to reach specified speeds while still keeping the famous original shape.

In reality such a redesign would have been near impossible, and most likely the tail unit would have been radically redesigned instead (such as was the case with the historical Pulqui II fighter built by Kurt Tank after the war).

In general, the plane is modeled with several concessions that were possible to make only using the knowledge gained post the 1950s.


You can dismiss it as baloney but unless the wind tunnel was inaccurate, it's possible at high speeds the tail of the Ta-183 would have broken off. Lots of odd things happen at close to the speed of sound, and the tail of the Ta-183 does look a bit vulnerable, with it's rather long length.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I think if you lok closely , the stats for Ta183 are on the left, Vampire right.

I think if you go back and look closely, the Ta 183 was supposed to have a higher performance than the Vampire... Really go take a look...

Now having said that, I still stand by my original post that there is no way to compare these two aircraft. One never flew, so how can we base anything off of it?

Just for fun however, I will vote for the Ta 183. Why?

1. Much cooler design (that is about the only thing we can really compare...)
2. Projected performance was much better.
3. It was a more modern design, and therefore I think it would have better. This is just based off of my opinion however...

Thing is Adler
if the two flew in combat with each other, we'd have lots of hard data on which was best at what and overall, who was likely to come out on top - so no need for a poll. For a poll to be fun, surely a sprinkling of what-if can do no harm?

My point is, what are you going to use for comparison? There is no real data to compare.

Just for fun is fine though. For fun I voted for the Ta 183, it was a much cooler looking design...

Pilot Notes:

A captured model of the Ta-183 was tested in the TsAGI wind tunnel post war, and immediately uncovered a fatal mistake in the design. Flutter and subsequent structural failure of the tail unit began at only 700 km/h. Therefore we've had to artificially strengthen the tail unit by a great amount, in order to allow for the design to reach specified speeds while still keeping the famous original shape.

In reality such a redesign would have been near impossible, and most likely the tail unit would have been radically redesigned instead (such as was the case with the historical Pulqui II fighter built by Kurt Tank after the war).

In general, the plane is modeled with several concessions that were possible to make only using the knowledge gained post the 1950s.


You can dismiss it as baloney but unless the wind tunnel was inaccurate, it's possible at high speeds the tail of the Ta-183 would have broken off. Lots of odd things happen at close to the speed of sound, and the tail of the Ta-183 does look a bit vulnerable, with it's rather long length.

Not sure about the truth of any of that, but Tanks team was already looking at redesigning the aircraft. They actually had 3 different versions with different tails. They were all to be tested...

In the end the best choice obviously would have been chosen for production.

 

[Soren]

The Il2 team got it all wrong however as they thought that a horizontal stabilizer with ordinary elevators was used to control pitch. They didn't check the historical data and missed the fact that wing mounted elevons were used for controlling both pitch roll. The horizontal stabilizer was there merely for trim purposes, in the game however it is used as the main control in pitch which is completely wrong.

Also I highly doubt that the tail section would've failed at 700 km/h, I simply can't see any reason for it. So wether TsAGGI really did find this is questionable at best, esp. since no reference is given to the supposed test document.

 

[Butters]

Many of the projected German jets were very imaginative and unconventional in design. And most of them were never emulated by other designers for some reason. The Ta 183 has no real analog so far as I know, whereas the fundamental design features of the Vampire can be found in a number of successful designs (SAAB J21R, Sea Venom, Sea Vixen)

While I'm aware that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, the absence of any actual a/c that share the essential design suite of the Ta 183 suggests that it may be inherently flawed in some way. It would be interesting to see how a large-scale, jet powered RC model of it would perform.

Does anyone know if any such model exists?

JL