Ta183 vs Vampire

Butters said:

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)

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There is nothing unrealistic or crazy about the Ta 183's design. In fact many post war aircraft had similiar designs, ie. Mig 15, F-86. The SAAB Tunnan and Mig-15 were indirectly influenced by the Ta 183. The Ta 183 was a much more modern design that Vampire, Sea Venom.

DAIG , I was going by the projected stats myself. That's all we can do.

I didn't say it was crazy or unrealistic. I said it was unconventional -which it is. It's essentially a tailless design where the nominal 'tailplane' is essentially a trimming device. Pitch control was a function of the aileron/elevons.

While the Tunnan and MiG-15 bear a superficial resemblance to the Ta 183, they are in fact much more conventional in design. A planform comparison of the three demonstrates that quite clearly. The Me 163 is much closer in design philosophy to the Ta 183 than are the Tunnan and MiG. And if the Ta 183 were to exhibit the same handling qualities as the Komet, than perhaps it would be superior to the Vampire. But as you've said, there's no real way to know...

While the Ta 183 may have influenced those design of the other jets in certain aspects, that influence did not extend to the fundamental design philosophy they embodied. Which makes extropolating the performance of the Ta 183 from their's, problematic at best.

JL

Butters,

Please keep in mind that the shape of any a/c very much depends on what type of engine is used. Taking that into consideration the design of the Ta-183 isn't at all unconventional. Had a longer engine been used the look would've been very similar to that of post war jets. Also to say that a design was bad just because it wasn't directly copied after the war is about as incorrect as one can be.

Oh btw, the SAAB Tunnan is very similar to the Ta-183, and it was considered an excellent a/c btw.

snafud1 said:

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

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He edited it after I wrote that snafud1

Ok , I see.

To compare the tail of the Ta 183 to the tail of aircraft like the J-29 or MiG 15 (and especially the F-86) seems to me to be missing the point by a wide margin. There is a superficial likeness in general layout but none at all in the specific tail geometry.

There can be no doubt that the design was more advanced that that of the Vampire, only a moron would argue otherwise, but that does not necessarily make it better.

I was interested to see Soren comparing the design of the Ta 183 with that of the Pulqui II and concluding that the Ta-183 was superior. I have to ask why is that? Would Tank really promote an inferior design? Why would he not progress from his wartime efforts? Or maybe (for I do not pretend to know) could the Pulqui II have been an advance on the Ta 183 but which was still not good enough? I tend towards the view that this is the case here.

The fuselage is extremely short, yes, and that means that in order to get the tail in the right place the fin has to double up as a boom. It is an ingenious idea compared to DH 's rather pedestrian solution but what are the bending forces on that fin during manouvering? They must have been horrendous surely? Even if it would not break it must surely have suffered from severe flexing which would have given the pilot a horrible fright.

All in my humble and uninformed opinion of course, but the design of that tail looks terribly flawed. I hope we are not just praising this aircraft because it is a very advanced German 1945 project? To me the Messerschmitt P.1101 always looked far more likely to result in a successful high performance fighter and I think is the closer influence to the SAAB Tunnan than the FW was.

It also not true that German wartime designs were not reproduced. The Me P.1101 was cloned into the Bell X-5 research aircraft, the X-4 was based on a Lippisch design and the Vought Cutlass was pure Arado in its design. There are many other examples including the the Gloster P.276, a rival design to the Hunter and Swift that was based very much on the Lippisch P.13a. With the postwar luxury of time and research funds the wheat was sorted from the chaff and dead end designs based on German projects such as the P.276, Martin B-51 and others were buried, so it is very telling that no Ta-183 clone was ever flown and I believe the tail design has everything to do with it.

Again, my words are being misinterpreted...I never said that the the Ta 183 is no good because it was not directly copied by others. I said that the fundamental design, ie; a tailless , swept wing jet fighter, was rarely emulated by other designers. The only one that comes to mind is the F7U Cutlass...

The tailplane on the Ta 183 is not the primary pitch control of the a/c. That function is served by the elevons. The Tunnan, OTOH, IS a conventional design, the rotund fuselage and tail boom notwithstanding. It has much more in common with other early post-war Western and Soviet jets than it does with the Ta I83.

Tank had the opportunity to recreate a fighter similar to the '183 in Argentina but instead chose a more conventional design (A flop as it happned. Maybe he should have built on the '183 design...) Why would he do so if the Ta 183 was such a promising a/c?

Perhaps the Ta 183 would have been an effective fighter, but then again, more likely not. A more convential design would have been a safer bet. Such a/c have proved themselves repeatedly, whereas the tailless, swept wing design has not. and the fact that the Vampire is less 'modern' or advanced, does not a priori make it less effective. To assume that is also 'incorrect'.

JL

EDIT: I guess this is what happens when you stop halfway thru writing to eat supper...

The Ta 183 could not be considered tail-less. Despite the use of elevons the platform for fighter configuration for at least the next 10 years after its design was set in place. Here's some more influence...



One could speculate all day whether this design could have been a dog or a history maker but based what was flown in the preceding years I think Tank's team had it right.

Butters, the Cutlass takes nothing from the Ta 183. As I posted earlier, it was taken from an Arado design. The Tunnan is also much closer in concept to the Me P.1101 than anything else. Otherwise I think we are singing from the same hymn sheet.

FlyboyJ - If Tank had it right with the design of the Ta 183 why did he himself never use that design again? The tail design of the Ta 183 is not the same as the Lavochkin you posted above, it is extremely unorthodox and, in my view, dangerously so. Look at how every high mounted tail (including your pic above) is mounted on a stiff, broad chord fin. Why would you expect the Ta 183 to be any different?

Maybe it's just the pic but it kinda looks unstable. It seems the designs that came afterwards fuslage was longer but I think Soren is right, it does kinda look like the SAAB Tunnan.


I have to admit, it does look cool as hell.

Is this picture a forgery?



It's supposedly a Ta-183 landing somewhere in China or Russia, but some doubt if it's real.

AMtech 1/48 Ta-183

If you type in Ta-183 windtunnel on Google you can find pictures of a wind tunnel model of the Ta-183 Kurt Tank built, but it doesn't say much how it performed. It doesn't even say if the Allies tested it or not.

It's pretty scarce information on it, much was probably lost after the war.

Edit: here's a picture of the wind tunnel model.





Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Luft '46 entry

Waynos said:

FlyboyJ - If Tank had it right with the design of the Ta 183 why did he himself never use that design again?

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Funding and employment. Lets face it, although he had his shot in Argentina, it wasn't Germany in terms of resources and money, but then again it's the basic layout that was taken a step further in the generation of fighters.

Waynos said:

The tail design of the Ta 183 is not the same as the Lavochkin you posted above, it is extremely unorthodox and, in my view, dangerously so.

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Why? Construction? Aerodynamics?

Waynos said:

Look at how every high mounted tail (including your pic above) is mounted on a stiff, broad chord fin. Why would you expect the Ta 183 to be any different?

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Why not?? Again, what did it look like in the wind tunnel?

When were drag chutes first used, 47 or 48??

Waynos said:

FlyboyJ - If Tank had it right with the design of the Ta 183 why did he himself never use that design again? The tail design of the Ta 183 is not the same as the Lavochkin you posted above, it is extremely unorthodox and, in my view, dangerously so. Look at how every high mounted tail (including your pic above) is mounted on a stiff, broad chord fin. Why would you expect the Ta 183 to be any different?

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No but many planes were influenced, influenced does not mean copied. Also Tank new that the tail design might not be the best, that is why he designed 2 other prototypes with 2 different tail designs.

vikingBerserker said:

When were drag chutes first used, 47 or 48??

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The Ar-234 and Ju-287 jets used them in 1944, too.
I tend to think that most Ta-183 pictures aviable were soviet propaganda tricks. They succeeded in this, the soviet Ta-183 even got a NATO-code.
When comparing the Ta-183 wih the Pulqui please do not forget that Multhopp designed the Ta-183, not Kurt Tank!

For what it's worth, the guys at AVHistory had a Ta183 for CFS3 built on Tank's data and it flew and handled well in the sim to a certain degree, but it had a tendancy to roll if you gave it any slack what so ever. It would also enter into a spin that was almost always fatal if you allowed excessive loading.

I know that this is merely a sim experience, but I trust the flight models of the guys at AVHistory for thier 1% accuracy over Oleg's people any day.

By the way, here's the 3-views of the Ta183 II and Ta183 III:

I noted four things
highly swept wings without nothing, in drawings I have seen, to hinder spanvise airflow
Very stubby body, short engine doesn't usually mean short fuselage, usually they put "flamepipe" behind engine and accepted some loss in trust and got reasonable fuselage length.
I also have some doubt on the tail shape, if made structurally enough strong it would be heavy.
T-tail had its own problems at high AoA

Juha

Waynos said:

Look at how every high mounted tail (including your pic above) is mounted on a stiff, broad chord fin

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F-104?

FlyboyJ;

Funding and employment. Lets face it, although he had his shot in Argentina, it wasn't Germany in terms of resources and money, but then again it's the basic layout that was taken a step further in the generation of fighters.

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The location does not explain why he changed the design so much, indeed it would have been easier and cheaper to leave the design unchanged, unless he thought the tail was flawed?

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Not really - there could have been tooling and manufacturing considerations as well. Again, look where the Pulqui was to be built. At that time I don't think Argentina ever produced a production aircraft

Why? Construction? Aerodynamics?.

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Both. even aerodynamiscists of the day beleived it would be seriously prone to flutter, I see no reason to disagree. Given its shape that flutter could quickly become catastrophic failure. Like I said, no tail like it was ever flown on any other T-tail, fighter or otherwise, even the ones designed by Tank.

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Who are these "aerodynamicists"? How could they make such an assessment with out seeing wind tunnel data and testing?