It was estimated by Arado a maximum speed of 780 km/h (480 mph) at 6.000 m (20.000 ft) high, an operating altitude of 11.000 m (36.000 ft) and a range of 1.995 km (1.240 milles). The range was shorter than the one requested by the RLM, but as they liked the design, two prototypes were ordered as the Ar.234. The prototype's airframes were completed by the end of 1941, but the Jumo engines were not. It wouldn't be until February 1943 when they were completed. When they arrived, they were considered as unsafe for flying by Junkers and were therefore used for static and taxi tests only. Flight-qualified engines finally arrived and the Arado Ar.231 V-1 (the first prototype) did finally flight for the first time on 30th July 1943 at Rheine airfield.
By September there were four prototypes flying. The second one, Ar.234 V-2, crashed on 2nd October 1943 at Rheine, near Münster after suffering a fire in its port wing which caused a failure of both engines and various instrumentation failures. The aircraft dived into the ground killing its pilot, Flügkapitan Selle. The eighth prototype was fitted with the original arrangement of trolley and skid landing gear, intended for the planned operational Ar.234A version, which was never produced.
The sixth and eighth aircraft of the series were powered by four BMW 003 jet engines instead of the Junkers Jumo 004s, the sixth having four engines fitted in individual nacelles. The eighth had its engines fitted in twin nacelles under each wing. These were the first four-engine jet aircraft to fly with the twin-engined Ar.234 V-7 making history as it was the first jet-powered aircraft to ever fly a reconnaissance mission, piloted by Erich Sommer.
The expected weight of the aircraft was 8 tonnes approximately. In order to reduce the weight and maximise internal fuel capacity, Arado didn't use the typical landing gear arrangement. Instead the aircraft had to take off from a jettisonable three-wheeled tricycle gear-style trolley and had to land on three retractable skids, one under each section of the fuselage, and one under each nacelle. The central fuselage skid, was intended to retract into the fuselage with skid bay-doors enclosing it, according to the original design document for the E.370. However, as it was seen with the Messerschmitt Me.163B rocket fighter, which used a landing skid, it was discovered that the skid didn't allow movement after the end of the landing run, leaving the aircraft scattered around the runway, unable to taxi off without remounting every aircraft on a trolley for towing off the landing area.Erich Sommer himself declared after the war that the landing skid, if the runway was wet, was like "landing on soap" from the complete lack of braking capability of the skid system.
The RLM had already foreseen the promise of the design and asked Arado in July two prototypes of the "Schnell" (fast) bomber version as the Ar.234B. As the original skid-mounted fuselage was very slender and filled with fuel tanks, there was no room for an internal bomb bay and the bombs had to be carried externally.
As the cockpit was directly in front of the fuselage, the pilot couldn't see the the rear, so the guns, when available, were aimed through a periscope, derived from the type used in the tanks, mounted on the cockpit roof. The rear-firing gun system was generally considered useless and were omitted in the production examples while retaining the periscope for rearwards vision. The external bomb-load and the mentioned problem of aircraft littering the runways unable to move, made the skid-landing system impractical, so the B variant was modified to have a fully retractable tricycle landing gear with the mid fuselage very slightly widened to accomodate the forward-retracting main gear units, while the nose-gear retracted backwards. The ninth prototype, marked with code PH+SQ, was the prototype of the Ar.234B and flew for the first time on 10th March 1944.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_Ar_234
2. AJ-Press - Monografie Lotnicze 32 - Arado 234 ''Blitz'' (translated)
3. https://www.valka.cz/Arado-Ar-234-B-2-Blitz-t6476
No comments:
Post a Comment