Focke-Wulf Fw P.VII (Flitzer)

History

The situation in Germany during World War II forced the aviation industry to constantly provide solutions to the growing Allied air superiority and devastating day and night bombing raids. This provides some "clean canvases" for aerospace engineers looking to make a name for themselves or advance design theory. As turbojet technology advanced, it opened the door to some fantastic aircraft designs, many of which never existed.

The Focke-Wulf Fw "Flitzer" (meaning "Streaker"/"Flasher") became one of the war's forgotten fighter schemes, eventually losing out to another Focke-Wulf product, Hans Multhopp's Ta 183 "Huckabein". Speedster also stands for "Plan Seven" by its project name "P. 7" or "P. VII".

Design work on the fighter began in March 1943 as part of the larger Focke-Wulf company program to provide a single-seat turbojet-powered solution for possible submission to the Luftwaffe. The earliest product was called Project VI ("P. 6"), and it was more or less faithful to the P. 7except for the slightly different canopy, fuselage, and air intake locations. The resulting design used a central fuselage nacelle that transitioned to a main plane layout with wings swept aft (swept at a 32-degree angle)). The cockpit is located under the canopy at the rear of the nose cone, and it is planned to install a turbojet engine in the stern.

The single engine will be inhaled through a dual intake scheme with ports placed at each wing root. The control surfaces were located on the trailing edge of the wing main aircraft, and a dual-arm configuration was chosen, using rods extending near the midpoint of the main aircraft and joined together at the tail by a single elevated aircraft for a dual-rudder approach.

The landing gear is all-wheel and fully retractable - a proposed three-wheel configuration for an edgy look. As a fighter, the recommended armament is nose-mounted 2 x 30mm MK 103 or MK 108 series guns, and wing-mounted 2 x 20mm MK 151/20 guns (one per wing).

Original design plans called for a combined propulsion unit a Henkel HeS 011A turbojet paired with a Walter HWK 509A-2 rocket motor. The missile installation should help provide a greater initial rate of climb for fighter jets trying to intercept incoming threats.

In the end, the final revision of the aircraft was only equipped with turbojets.

Focke-Wulf engineers completed hand-held "free flight" and wind tunnel models, while ordering a full-scale wooden model to help sell the product to German authorities. However, as the P.VII was eventually abandoned at the end of the war, any work on the product could not make the idea acceptable - a number of other designs had made the leap, including the Ta 183 and the operational Messerschmitt Me 262 "Schwalbe" "Jet" The P.VII has completed its mockup stage and has seen a completed manufacturing plan as well as some fully assembled parts.

Estimated performance figures for the P.VII fighter include a top speed of 593 mph, a service ceiling of 42,500 ft, and a rate of climb of 3,600 ft/min. Dimensions are 34.6 feet in length, 26.2 feet in wingspan and 7.7 feet in height.

Interestingly, the two-arm method was successfully used by several British jets after the war, including the fabled de Havilland "Vampire" - a very imitation of the German wartime fighter proposal.

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