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Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri (Hummingbird)

1942 SECRET WEAPONS OF THE LUFTWAFFE WORLD WAR 2

History

Helicopter as a viable weapon of war is not the only historical area of ??the Vietnam War nor the Korean War before it as the concept of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) flight has been in the minds of engineers for millennia. The Germans saw use for this versatile machine during World War II (1939-1945), and their navy could rely on hover platforms launched from ships to scan the "horizon" and spot enemy submarines. In addition, these systems serve as artillery observers on cruisers and battleships, sending careful corrections to the gunners.

One of the most famous contributors to the German helicopter empire during the war was Anton Flettner and his single-seat creations Fl 265 and Fl 282. The Fl 265 appeared in six examples in 1939, while the Fl 282 "Kolibri" ("Hummingbird") debuted in 1942, and 24 models were subsequently produced for the German Navy and Luftwaffe (Air Force).

The Fl 282 was offered as a follow-up to the limited predecessor Fl 265, albeit with improvements. Flettner was also responsible for several rotorcraft designs that led to World War II in the 1930s, including the Fl 184 and Fl 185 prototypes, to name a few.

The early Fl 265s were more or less prototypes themselves, while the Fl 282s were more of a refined end product for actual military use. The Fl 282 shares the same "intermeshing" rotor design as the previous Fl 265, an arrangement in which two individual rotor blades cross without touching, while rotating in opposite directions and on separate pylons to achieve the desired vertical lift. The Fl 282 also had a completely new engine installed in the Bramo Sh.

14A, air-cooled 7-cylinder radial piston engine, 160 hp.

The basic form of the Fl 282 was basically designed around its engine casing. The shell is centralized and forms a large part of the fuselage. In front of the open-air cockpit, the pilot sits in front with the dashboard in front of him and a joystick between his knees. The rotor is located on a flat pylon on top of the fuselage. A basic fin assembly was added to the tail of the fuselage mass, to which a vertical fin assembly and horizontal plane were attached.

The vehicle's undercarriage is fixed in place and consists of a pair of single-wheeled main legs on the sides of the fuselage and a single-wheeled front leg below the cockpit floor. It was fairly practical by modern standards, but it helped shape subsequent helicopter designs.

The structure of the fuselage consists of the entire steel tube covered with fabric on non-critical surfaces.

Flight testing of the Fl 282 began in 1941 and eventually included two airworthy prototypes. Interestingly, both prototypes were given an enclosed cockpit, while subsequent units will feature the previously described, beautifully photographed open-air design. Again, the German Navy recognized the value of the Flettner helicopters and ordered 15 from their surface ships for evaluation. Prototypes were designated Fl 282 V1 to V7, followed by Fl 282A-1 single-seat reconnaissance versions for launch/recovery of German battleships.

The designation Fl 282B-2 describes the Fl 282 submarine-launched single-seat reconnaissance aircraft. The Fl 282B-2 is a unique sub-variant of the Type B mainline and features a second seating arrangement, one in the rear frame, for observers serving as reconnaissance, reconnaissance or mission liaison officers.

Helicopters certainly offered considerable tactical value at the time - they didn't require landing/takeoff space on the runway and had relatively low maintenance engines. Additionally, these platforms provide availability on cloudy days and are less susceptible to the harsh weather encountered by fixed-wing aircraft. Sometime in 1944, the Luftwaffe received a production order for around 1,000 Fl 282s, produced by the historic BMW Group, to meet the sheer numbers needed for the German war - which has now turned into a defensive one.

In 1945, the Luftwaffe established its own reconnaissance wing through the Transportstaffel 40 (TS/40), which would store several Fl 282 helicopters and be stationed in the Bavarian region of Muhldorf.

The Fl 282 was in service until the last weeks of the war. However, the planned (and rather ambitious) fleet of 1,000 men, which never materialized during the Allied bombing campaign, ended the operation of the BMW factory outside Munich. Anton Flettner ended up working for the American company Kaman after the war and enabled the company to supply several well-known light helicopters with meshing rotor arrangements (the valuable multipurpose "K-MAX" series is one such modern example). ). It is worth noting that the Germans also had limited use of another helicopter during the war - an unrelated Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 in 1941 - producing 20.

These were also assigned to TS/40 before the end of the war.

Examples of FL 282 aircraft captured by the Americans and Soviets during the Allied advance into Germany, where they were severely assessed in the postwar years.