Friday, 16 December 2016

Arado Ar.232B

At the same time when the 232A version was being produced, a second B version was being designed. It intended to solve the problems present at the A one, like the lack of power in case of one engine's failure.
As it had two engines more than the A, the wing had to be extended and the center of gravity was moved forward. The first B prototypes flown for the first time in May 1942 and were followed by a production order to ten machines more. Those airplanes were widely used, specially on the eastern front. However the RLM didn't order more of them as transport planes had the lowest priority as they consumed much more fuel than they could afford. Some others were used by Arado to transport airplane parts between their factories.
Apparently in the inmediate postwar, the British forces captured two of them and, after being tested by Eric "Winkle" Brown, who defined the Ar.232B as an excellent airplane, it was used for regular cargo flights between Germany and the Uk during late 1945 and early 1946.

There were also some unbuilt projects regarding this airplane. The Ar.232C and Ar.432 was initally a sub-variant with wooden wings intended to save some precious alluminium and it would've been produced from October 1945 onwards. The Ar.532 and Ar.632 were version with even larger wingspan that would've been powere by six engines. Unfortunately we couldn't find plans or profile drawings for them so we have left them undrawn.











Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_Ar_232
2. http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=475

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