Tuesday 5 April 2016

Arado Ar.234 B-2/N

Initially the RLM (Reich's Air Ministry) intended to modify up to 30 Ar.234B-2 airframes to fit them for the night-fighting role. From a proposal made in 12th September 1944 between Walter Blume (Arado's director) and Hermann Goering's top aviation technologist Siegfried Knemeyer.
It was named Arado Ar.234 B-2/N, since it was made over the B version of the airplane and was given the nickname of nachtigall (Nightingale). Only three of them were converted and were fitted with a FuG 218 "Neptun" radar with the antennas reduced in order to operate better from such airplane. In the gondola section intended to carry bombs, a gun pod containing two MG 151/20 autocannon was fitted instead and a second crew member was acommodated inside the fuselage in a very cramped space.
It was first flown by the Sonderkommando Bonow, which was an experimental night fighter unit that operated until the end of the war which was under direct control of the Luftflotte Reich.
Only two of them were converted. This unit began operating really late in the war, on late March 1945 and the team soon found that the airplane wasn't suit for aerieal combat and no kills were recorded.
Update: 18/02/2020. We have replaced the drawings with some better ones.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_Ar_234
2. http://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/09/17/arado-ar-234b-2-nachtigall/



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