War Machines Drawn: Arado Ar E.580

Sunday 17 April 2016

Arado Ar E.580

This airplane must have beaten some kind of record because the RLM gave Arado only two days to complete this design. The requirements given by the Technische Amt in September 1944 were that it had to be a lightweight fighter powered by a single BMW 003 turbojet engine and the deadline was just a matter of days. Apparently the RLM specifications were very precise regarding the design lines and technical specifications.

Once designed it had certain similarities with the Heinkel He.162 even if it featured a low-mounted wing. Another risky characteristic was the position of the cockpit canopy inmediately ahead of the engine air intake which could made the even smallest airflow vortices to loose a considerable amount of performance, up to a 10% as a Rechlin test pilot told once. That was a problem that could have been easily fixed using a wind tunnel test model, however as the time was lacking when designing this airplane, there wasn't any time left to perform wind-tunnel testing. The fuselage was made out of steel and the wings, as specified in the RLM requirement, were made out of wood.

The tail had twin fins and rudders it was going to be powered by a single BMW 003A-1 delivering 800Kp of thrust and it was going to be armed with two 20mm MG 151/20 cannons or two 30mm MK108 cannons mounted in the nose. As it's evident, the RLM chose the He.162 Salamander design and this, the E.580 never went beyond the drawing board.