The Ta-152.... The Best High Altitude Fighter?????

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Just because they'd been used did not make them uncomplicated. The Jumo engine was by all accounts I've see difficult to maintain, especially in the fighter airframes. The much touted German fuel injection system also required more maintaince than a carberated engine. SEP power (
GM1) was not used very much and was a complication for actual combat use. MW50 metering in a fuel injection engine is more difficult than in a carberated engine because in the carberated engine the same venturi effect is used to meter both fluids where on the fuel injection engine they are seperate systems which must be coordinated.

KraziKanuK said:
It had nothing to do with requiring expert maintainance. It just the state of affairs at that point in the war. As with any other German a/c of the time, manufacturing was not the best.
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Look at the servicablity levels of German, British, and American aircraft through out the war and I think you will see this is not the case. Even in early 1944 German servicability was generally on a par with the Brits, i.e. a squadron required 12-16 aircraft to be able to expect to have 8 available for combat.

KraziKanuK said:
So if the Ta152 was expensive to produce, then so must be the Doras and Antons?
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Not sure about the Anton. But I remember the estimated cost of the Dora9 in 1945 USD after factoring out slave labor was something on the order of $100,000, which was in line with a P-38 but much more expensive than a P-51 (~$65,000).

=S=

Lunatic
 
You have some really weird ideas and assumptions.

Can you list the complicated innovations requiring expert maintanence that the 152 that had not already having been seen of previous German a/c? This is what you said, "The TA was a plane racked with innovations, most of them complicated and requiring expert maintanence." The 213, MW50 and GM1 were not innovations. You can put any spin you want on those three (boost juices and FI) but the Germans had years of experience, especially with FI.

Boost juices and FI systems were not the problem with the 152, or any other German a/c, but manufacturing quality sure was. And, that is why the 152s were U/S.

One can not compare American and German manufacturing costs.
 
I agree KK - The -152 with all these alleged "innovations" would be no less or no more complicated to maintain than say a P-47 or a late model Spit. Airframe maintenance, supercharger set-up ignition timing, fuel injection adjustment are very similar to many of the aircraft of the period. The only thing I could see being more burdensome on the -152 than allied aircraft was the possible use of non-stategic dissimilar metals which would set up corrosion on the airframe. Aside from that, "a plane is a plane is a plane...."
 
gents its very tough to come up with conclusions about the Ta 152 C or H as there is nothing in print from the black men-mechanics point of view. all we have is exerpts from about 15-20 pilots chatting about operations and testing the Tank at high altitude, and pics of the Tank in D. Harmanns work of it being pieced together.

I still await the EE book on the craft which will give some answers but not all to the varying degree of questions posed
 
Lunatic, hi:

What´s wrong with the german fuel injection system (FI)?

Of course a fuel injection device is a more complicated one than a simple carburetor. More moving parts!

That could be one of the very rare "cons" of the FI when compared to the carbureted engines.
 
Mechanical fuel injection is not only simple but very reliable as long as dirt is not allowed into the system. In mechanical FI the tolerances are so tight to allow the high pressure precision metering of the fuel that a very small amount of dirt will wreck it. Once set up you shouldn't need to touch it unless its run dry.

wmaxt
 
Udet said:
Of course a fuel injection device is a more complicated one than a simple carburetor. More moving parts!
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Not all the time - look at a pressure carbuerator.....


Perfect!!!!
 
DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Was there any major differences between American, British, and German carbuerators and fuel injection devices?
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In a nutshell - no. The operating principals are the same. With fuel injection, there might of been slight differences on how the fuel was metered (mechanical pistons in lieu of diaphragms or bellows within the fuel injection unit). Where there was a difference were the use of "pressure carburetors" found US designs and used on I believe the R-2000, 3350 and 4360 (I think the 2800 had a Stromberg Carburetor that might of been one too). Instead of a float there is a metering system like on fuel injection, but the fuel-air mixture is still distributed through an intake manifold in lieu of fuel injection nozzles. We know about float carbs on early Sptis and know the Germans favored fuel injection.

One innovation that I could think of off the top of my head was the fuel metering system on the -190A. From what I understand there is no mixture control, everything is done automatically. This system did not emerge until the early 1970s when Beech incorporated it on their Bonanza with an IO-470 engine I believe.
 

British carbs had floats controlling fuel metering, causing the famous engine stall when inverted problems of the early spitfires. The US Bendix carb did not have this problem, and I believe was used on later model Spitfires.

My point is that the fuel injection system is seperate from the the MW50 injection system. Both must be coordinated through seperate metering systems, which is more complex than simply using airflow past a venturi to manage the mixture ratios.

Again, look at the records of how many planes were in a units inventory vs. how many were ready to fly and I think my point is made. Even in 1943 German (and British) ratios are comparitively low.

Someone here (Erich?) once made a post indicating the ratios of available Dora's and TA's that were able/unable to fly on any given day, and as I recall it was down around 50%.

And the unified control system on the 190A was one of its greatest weaknesses. Had it had a manual system it would have been able to operate at the higher altitudes where it was needed. The flight control computer failed at around 24-25K forcing the plane into a low power rich fuel mode (70% power?). It relies on relative pressures with the ambient pressure acting as a divisor. When the ambient pressure got too low a divide by zero error condition occured. The Beech system did not rely on purely analog logic to control the system, and I believe it was not made to operate above 20,000 feet anyway (not sure of this). Modern unfied control systems of course use digital logic and have no problem with altitude.

=S=

Lunatic
 

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Lunatic said:
British carbs had floats controlling fuel metering, causing the famous engine stall when inverted problems of the early spitfires. The US Bendix carb did not have this problem, and I believe was used on later model Spitfires.
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Or Strombergs.....

Lunatic said:
The Beech system did not rely on purely analog logic to control the system, and I believe it was not made to operate above 20,000 feet anyway (not sure of this).
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Unless it was turbosupercharged, an option offered by Beechcraft in the day.....
 
Still waiting for the complicated innovations requiring expert maintanence that the 152 had added that had not already had been seen of previous German a/c.
 
Thanks for the info on the carborators.

About the any given aircraft that could be used on any one day, at one point around Jan 1945 (will have to look up the dates in my "Diaries of the OKW) the Luftwaffe was only able to put about 75 aircraft in the air at any given time. This one not however due to maintenance practices or the aircraft being to complicated but rather due to the lack of fuel.
 
KraziKanuK said:
Still waiting for the complicated innovations requiring expert maintanence that the 152 had added that had not already had been seen of previous German a/c.
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Why is it significant if they'd been seen on previous German AC? These technologies were all quite new in the 40's and they were all combine onto the TA152. They reduced the servicablity of earlier AC as well as the TA.

Fuel injection is harder to maintain than carberation - there are 12 injectors to be serviced rather than a carb and you have to get to the injectors which are often covered by other components. The location and design of the cooling system also made engine maintainence more difficult.

The point remains. Typcially only about half (or less) of the Dora's and TA's available were flyable on any given day.

And I agree it is hard to compare German vs. US cost of arms figures - mainly because of the large slave labor component of German production. But you can look at the relative resource draw and in this respect come up with a fair comparision. I've seen relative comparisons of the cost of a Tiger I vs. the cost of a Sherman done this way.
 

The figures I was refering to were number of aircraft that were flight worthy according to German records, not the number that were actually flown.
 

Once set up and adjusted, fuel injection systems can be easier to maintain than carburetor systems, but they are very temperamental; as a maintainer overall fuel injection isn't much more difficult.

If you consider pressure carburetors, I consider the system the same as Fuel injection as far as maintainability.....
 

And according to German records that I have (and mine are actual copies of the German records in several volumes of books printed here in Germany from the OKW) that most of the worthy aircraft were grounded because of Fuel Shortages. For instance a report here dated 26 Januar 1945 shows that only 9000 tons of fuel was available for the month of February. Speer had planned for 39,000 tons but due to the attacks on Dec. 31, 1944 on Harburg the Reichs fuel amount was reduced to 20%, and that this was even questionable because all other fuel supplies and production were at a halt.
 
Lunatic said:
Again, look at the records of how many planes were in a units inventory vs. how many were ready to fly and I think my point is made. Even in 1943 German (and British) ratios are comparitively low.
Lunatic
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Fw190A units in May 1943

Russian Front

Stab/JG 54 > 4(on hand) - 4 (operational)
I/JG 54 > 36 - 30
II/JG 54 Bf 109G 40 - 40

95% operational

Stab/SchG > 1 6 - 6
I/SchG 1 > 41 - 32

80% operational

I/JG 26 > 36 - 30

83% operational

Stab/JG 51 > 14 - 11
I/JG 51 > 39 - 20
III/JG 51 > 40 - 21
IV/JG 51 > 28 - 20

60% operational

Average 79.5% operational on the tough Russian front


Western Front

Stab/JG 2 > 4 - 4
I/JG 2 > 40 - 40
II/JG 2 > 24 - 18
III/JG 2 > 40 - 37

92% operational

Stab/JG 26 > 4 - 4
II/JG 26 > 40 - 40
III/JG 26 > 40 - 35

94% operational

11. (Jabo)/JG 54 > 16 - 9

56% operational

Stab/SKG 10 > 6 - 6
I/SKG 10 42 > - 42
II/SKG 10 > 40 - 38
IV/SKG 10 > 30 - 23

97% operational

85% operational average for 190 units in the West

An 82.5% for all 190 units using the complicated and maintainance intensive FI.

Yes, for sure a LOW operational status. Now what point was that?
 
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