AeroModeller – June 2018

47

While chief designer for Focke-Wulf, Kurt

Tank, did not get a pure jet into the air

during the war, he certainly produced

a mass of design studies of appeal to

model builders which could be termed

Fockenezers! My own FW-190 Doranezer

fl ew beautifully straight off the building

board (my only design ever that did this!).

This book has literally dozens of beautifully

presented 3-views suited to this class,

worth the cover price alone.

The technical aspects of each of these

designs are presented in detail: speeds,

dimensions, armaments etc. to the point

that I became bemused. I am basically

a lazy guy, I really look for only one thing

at a time. But this author has produced

so much detail that I began to realise

just how much dedication students of

aerodynamics are prepared to seek out.

By the way, the term Focke-Wulf does

not have dire implications, it is the names

of the two directors of the company at

formation....

To really appreciate the design problems

for jet aircraft, one needs a sense of

the compressible fl ow regimes that

accompany high-speed jet fl ight.

Amazing Air

The fi rst insight gained by a student of

aerodynamics is just how complicated

and confusing this subject has become.

The text books do not provide a clear

introduction into the topic of the behaviour

of air. The authors cannot wait to get

down and dirty with some calculus, vector

equations, cunning approximations,

linearisation (whatever that is!), strange

terms (Reynold number, Mach number),

FAR LEFT: The

contents page for the

large number of design

variants considered in

the text of the Focke-

Wulf Jets Figthers,

ISBN 978-1-78155-

644-1.

LEFT: FW1-TLJager

Projekt 1. Not sure I

would like to be the

pilot with the fuel

tanks directly above

the red-hot turbine

wheel! Lack of access

to strategic high-

temperature alloys

meant the turbine

failures were likely,

especially after 20

hours running. Typical

hi-clarity drawing

to be found in the

book, something for

modellers’ to drool

over!

pilot with the fuel

FW “Volksjager”. Scary layout in terms of stability

for this bird. Highly swept wing could be in

trouble with pitch-up near the stall, especially

with the high set tailplane being prone to “deep-

stall” as the fl ow blankets the high-set tailplane.

The English-Electric “Lightning” introduced the

low-set tailplane to eliminate this problem. Lack

of wing anhedral, as per Lockheed F104, makes

the rudder rolling moment scary, not to mention

the “snaking” motion experienced at high speeds

by the similar Mig-15. Ain’t hindsight grand!

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