War Machines Drawn: Arado Ar.E.561

Thursday, 14 April 2016

Arado Ar.E.561

A preliminar note about the lenghtness of this airplane: It seems that the length is controversial to say the least. Apparently the official length data claims that it was going to be 17,5m long, however, as the authors of the book Luftwaffe Secret Projects - Ground Assault & Special Purpose Aircraft point, that lengthness seems too be far fetched and they say that it was going to be no shorter than 10m long but no longer than 17,5m So, considering that the Bf.110 was 12,3m long and this airplane was going to be longer than the Bf.110, we opted for a middle-point lengthness and gave the airplane a lengthness of 14m long.

As the RLM issued a new requirement for a multi-seat heavy Zerstörer able of achieving speeds of 550/600km/h at an altittude of 6000m high in the end of 1936, Arado submitted this proposal in the early 1937.
It was going to feature a low cantilever wing, twin endplate fins and rudders and a crew of three. Just like the AGO Ao 225, it gave the feeling of being a conventional twin-engined aircraft except for the buried side-by-side 850hp DB 600 engines tilted at 44º to each other driving opposite-rotating wing-mounted propellers using remote drive shafts.
It also was going to have annular radiators in the wings nacelles, however, further studies showed that this engine arrangement was unsuitable for high-power engines because the components lacked strength causing that way many distortions and the manufacture of a drive of those characteristics was beyond the technological capabilities of those years. It was going to fit the Junkers shaft drive system but it was only suitable for low-end engines, not high-end ones, so Arado decided to withdraw the project and the RLM didn't show any further interest.

It was going to be armed with four cannons in the fuselage and nose, most probably 20mm MG FF ones, and two defensive machine guns, one at the rear of the cockpit, operated by the gunner/radio operator where most probably a pair of 7,92mm MG 15 were going to stand and another pair would have been located in the lower rear end of the fuselage where a defensive canopy would have been located having it's operator lying there in prone position.