Arado Ar 240

History

The Arado Ar 240 was developed following the 1938 RLM response to replace the twin-engine, two-seat Messerschmitt BF 110 Zerstorer heavy fighter, which became obsolete due to the changing face of warfare. Arado and Messerschmitt (the latter already experienced in this design) were contracted to develop an eventual replacement for the BF 110, with Messerschmitt at the forefront.

In the end, Messerschmitt's design was accepted as the Me 210, while the Arado's design was reduced to a test fuselage for the company's future designs. The Ar 240 ended up with an overly ambitious and complex design and poor flight characteristics, although it still performed exceptionally well.

The design of the Arado Ar 240 was led by Walter Blume, whose vision for the aircraft appeared years ago. The design features several breakthrough components, including a fully pressurized two-person cockpit, remotely controlled weapons, and a specially designed lift flap with a small total wing area for low-speed cruise.

In addition to its role as a heavy fighter, the Ar 240, like the proposed Me 210 design, was also intended to be an inherently capable dive bomber design, further complicated by the introduction of a dive braking system. The final product, with everything the Arado team wanted and needed, was housed inside, an increasingly heavier design.

Externally, the Ar 240 followed the traditional twin-engine layout of the time. The engines are positioned away from the fuselage on the mid-mounted monoplane wing assembly, with the edge of the engine nacelle intersecting the front of the cockpit nose and extending beyond the trailing edge of the wing. The fuselage has a thin pencil-like design, with the tail extending beyond the T-elevator and vertical stabilizer, adding an additional vertical stabilizer at the end of the fuselage.

In the pressurized cockpit, the crew can accommodate two people - a pilot and a navigator/gunner. The navigator/gunner operates two remote-controlled hull turrets, each armed with two 7.92m MG81 machine guns. Additional 2 x 7.92mm MG17 machine guns are also available for fixed positions.

The models in the series became a list of prototypes from the V-1 to the V-6, each gradually incorporating a new major component (the first prototype exploded in 1940). With the introduction of the Ar 240A-0 series, the system has reached production maturity.

The final design will eventually become the Ar 240C Universal Series, of which several major variants will be developed.

The performance of some Daimler-Benz engines is impressive. The DB601A mentioned is an inline engine type, although it is designed as a standard radial engine.

Each engine produces approximately 1,075 horsepower and can reach a top speed of 384 mph, with a service ceiling of over 34,000 feet and a range of over 1,200 miles. Despite these impressive statistics, the Ar 240 still had poor flight characteristics, dooming the design. Nonetheless, the system was used for unarmed reconnaissance missions over England during the operational testing phase of system development, at a time when few other twin-engine platform types could provide such a range.

There are only 14 systems in circulation in total for the Total Production Report.

Specification

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Production

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Performance

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Changes