Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Live free or die
Here's one of their Berlin to New York and back bombers that never made it off the drawing board, but still...it'd be cool to see it.

I believe two of these were built.

122 posted on 07/22/2003 12:00:07 AM PDT by squidly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies ]


To: squidly
Ju EF 132  3 view          The Junkers EF 132 was one of the last aircraft project developments undertaken by Junkers in WWII, and was the culmination of the Ju 287 design started in 1942. The shoulder-mounted wings were swept back at a 35 degree angle and featured a small amount of anhedral. Six Jumo 012 jet engines, each of which developed 2500 kp (5500 lbs) of thrust, were buried in the wing roots. Wind tunnel results showed the advantages of having the engines within the wing, rather than causing drag by being mounted below the wing surfaces. Several wooden mockups were built of the wing sections, in order to find the best way to mount the engines without wasting too much space while at the same time providing maintenance accessibility.  The landing flaps were designed to be split flaps, and the goal was to make the gearing and operation simple. Because of the high placement of the wings to the fuselage, an unbroken bomb bay of 12 meters (39' 4") could be utilized in the center fuselage.  The tail planes were also swept back and the EF 132 had a normal vertical fin and rudder. An interesting landing gear arrangement was planned, that consisted of a nose wheel, tow tandem main wheels beneath the center rear fuselage, and outrigger-type wheels under each outer wing. A fully glazed, pressurized cockpit located in the extreme fuselage nose held a crew of five. Armament consisted of two twin 20mm cannon turrets (one located aft of the cockpit, the other beneath the fuselage) and a tail turret containing another twin 20mm cannon. All of this defensive armament were remotely controlled from the cockpit, and a bomb load of 4000-5000 kg (8818-11023 lbs) was envisioned to be carried.
          A windtunnel model was tested in early 1945, and a 1:1 scale wooden mockup was also built at the Dessau Junkers facility to test the placement of various components, and also to check different air intake openings in the wing leading edge for the jet engines. The development stage had progressed far when the Soviets overran the Dessau complex and took possession of all of the Ju 287 and EF 132 designs and components. The Soviets gave its approval for the bombed out Junkers Dessau factory to be partially rebuilt, the wind tunnels repaired and the jet engine test and manufacturing facilities to be put back into operation.  The wooden mockup was inspected frequently by Soviet officials when the entire complex was carted up and removed to the USSR, along with forcibly removing all Junkers employees in October 1946. Work was begun on a glider to further test the flight handling characteristics, which was reported to be excellent. Construction work had begun on the Ju EF 132 when an order was given to stop all work, and the project was canceled.
124 posted on 07/22/2003 12:26:47 AM PDT by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 122 | View Replies ]

To: squidly
"I believe two of these were built."

Only if you count wooden mockups.

125 posted on 07/22/2003 12:29:02 AM PDT by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 122 | View Replies ]

To: squidly
A full scale wooden mockup of the EF132 was built but none were ever completed. You can see a lot of it's influence in early Soviet jet bombers, like the M-4 Bison and the T-16 Badger. That's a really nice graphic, notice the Hs293 missile firing, which were built at the Henschel Flugzeugwerke AG Berlin-Schönefeld complex.
What might be down there now?
126 posted on 07/22/2003 12:37:28 AM PDT by wolficatZ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 122 | View Replies ]

To: squidly
I don't recall whether it was with the EF 132 or something else, but the Germans did fly one Europe to NY mission during the war as a test run, turning back about 20 miles off Long Island. I don't know how much payload that plane could have carried but certainly they could have done the equivalent of a small Doolittle mission if they'd really wanted.
148 posted on 08/03/2003 2:12:48 PM PDT by JohnBovenmyer (I)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 122 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson