Focke-Wulf Ta 154

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The Focke-Wulf Ta 154 Moskito was a fast twin-engined German night fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf during late World War II. Only a few were produced and proved to have less impressive performance than the prototypes.

Development

Kurt Tank's team at Focke-Wulf had been working for some time on a fast attack bomber aircraft called the Ta 211, so named because it planned to use an uprated Jumo 211R engine. The plane was a high-wing twin-engined design, built primarily of plywood bonded with a special phenolic resin adhesive called Tego film.^[1] The only large-scale use of metal was in the pressurized cockpit.

The project's designation was changed to Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM—Ministry of Aviation) assignment number 8-154 (hence Ta 154) when it became apparent that the most suitable engine for the aircraft was the more powerful Jumo 213, and that Junkers could not deliver the Jumo 211-R in time due to technical and production problems. The 154 was also allocated the name "Moskito" as a form of recognition of the Royal Air Force's (RAF) de Havilland Mosquito.

In August 1942, the RLM asked for designs to meet a need for a dedicated night fighter, and the competition quickly boiled down to the Heinkel He 219 and the Ta 154. 15 prototypes of each were ordered for further testing. Throughout the contest the RLM generally favored the 219 due to its better visibility and range. They also seemed to be suspicious of the 154's wooden construction. In 1942, the Messerschmitt Me 210 should have been the only plane considered, but it was suffering significant development problems and was ignored.

It was at about this time that the light and very fast de Havilland Mosquito, also made of wood, arrived over Germany. It quickly racked up an impressive record; in its first 600 bombing missions, only one was shot down, compared to an average of 5%^[2] for RAF medium and heavy bombers. Erhard Milch personally requested a purpose-built German answer, and selected the 154. Infighting within German circles started almost immediately, because the RLM and night fighter units still wanted the He 219. Milch took this personally, and spent the better part of the next two years trying to have the 219 program terminated.

Flight tests

Development of the Ta 154 was already well advanced, and the first prototype V1 with Jumo 211F engines. bearing the Stammkennzeichen identification code TE+FE, made its maiden flight on July 1, 1943. It was followed by V2 with Jumo 211N engines, which was kept at the factory for handling trials. V1 was then sent to Rechlin-Lärz Airfield for fly-off testing against the He 219A and the new Junkers Ju 388. There the 154 reached almost 700 km/h (440 mph) and easily outflew the other two planes, but those were both fully armed and equipped with radar.

The first armed example of the Ta 154 was the V3 prototype, which also was the first to fit the Jumo 211R engines. The added weight of the guns and drag of the 32-dipole element Matratze radar antennas used on its UHF-band FuG 212 Lichtenstein C-1 radar unit slowed the plane by a full 75 km/h, although it was still somewhat faster than the 219. The rest of the 15 prototypes were then delivered as A-0 models, identical to V3. Some of these also included a raised canopy for better vision to the rear.

It quickly became clear that the Jumo 211R would not be available soon, if at all. Future production turned to the more powerful Jumo 213A, but this was also suffering from long delays. The 154 program spent most of the next year testing various prototypes, and sent many of the A-0s to Erprobungskommando 154. During these tests the plane showed an alarming tendency to break its complex lever-action main landing gear, and about half of the V series prototypes were lost this way.

By June 1944, the Jumo 213 was finally arriving in some numbers, and a production run of 154 A-1s were completed with these engines. Just prior to delivery^{[citation needed]} the only factory making Tego-Film, in Wuppertal, was bombed out by the Royal Air Force, and the plywood glue had to be replaced by one that was not as strong, and was later found to react chemically, apparently in a corrosive manner, with the wood in the Ta 154's structure. In July, several A-1s crashed with wing failure due to plywood delamination. This same problem also critically affected the Heinkel He 162 Spatz, Ernst Heinkel's "Volksjäger" jet fighter program entry.

Tank halted production in August, and the RLM eventually cancelled the entire project in September (Milch had been removed by then). At that time about 50 production aircraft had been completed, and a number of the A-0 pre-production planes were later modified to the production standard. An unknown number of the planes served with Nachtjagdgeschwader 3, and a few were later used as training aircraft for jet pilots.

Mistel/Pulkzerstorer variants

The designation Ta 154A-2/U3 was given to six unfinished 154A-1 airframes completed and converted into "Pulzerstorer" (Formation Destroyer) aircraft. At least three Pulkzerstorer and ''Mistel'' parasite fighter schemes were mooted for the 154. The only one of the three that was actually brought to operational readiness was a system whereby the entire forward fuselage ahead of the fuel tanks was filled with Amatol high explosive. A new and extremely small cockpit for the pilot was added to the airframe directly ahead of the tail-fin. From this cramped cabin, the pilot would fly the 'Bomb Moskito ' into an Allied bomber formation, arm the onboard charges and quickly bail out. A timer would then detonate the explosives a few seconds later. Fragmentation charges in the warhead would maximize the effective area of destruction. It was hoped that this flying bomb system would tear large holes in the Anglo-American bomber streams at little cost to the Luftwaffe in terms of pilot casualties. The six Ta 154A-2/U3 'Bomb Moskitos' were cleared for service and were assigned to an airbase near Poznan in the last weeks of the war, but were not used in combat. One Ta 154 Mistel scheme, reportedly designated Mistel 7, envisaged a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 'mother plane' mounted on struts above an unmanned Bomb Moskito. Take-off would be effected via a sturdy three-wheeled trolley of the same type designed for the abandoned A-model of the Arado Ar 234 reconnaissance bomber. The trolley would be jettisoned after takeoff, leaving the Mistel Moskito to fly to it's target with all four engines running. The combination would formate above an Allied bomber stream before the 190 pilot released the Bomb Moskito, which would then hopefully crash straight into a bomber with massively destructive effect. A related scheme would see a standard Ta 154 towing a Bomb Moskito behind it into the middle of a bomber stream, whereupon release and detonation would be initiated by the manned 154's pilot.

Specifications (Ta 154 A-1)

Data from ^{[citation needed]}

General characteristics

Crew: two
Length: 12.55 m (40 ft 3¼ in)
Wingspan: 16.30 m (52 ft 5¼ in)
Height: 3.60 m (11 ft 4 in)
Wing area: 31.40 m² (333.7 ft²)
Empty weight: 6,600 kg (15,000 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,950 kg (21,900 lb)
Powerplant: 2 × Junkers Jumo 211N liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,450 PS (1,066 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 615 km/h (332 kn, 382 mph)
Range: 1,400 km (760 nmi, 870 mi)
Service ceiling: 9,500 m (31,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 15 m/s (2,800 ft/min)

Armament

2 × 20 mm MG 151 cannons
2 × 30 mm (1.18 in) nose-mounted MK 108 cannons
2 × fuselage-mounted 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 108 cannons, Schräge Musik

References

↑ Goodman, Sidney H. (1998). Handbook of Thermoset Plastics. William Andrew. p. 47. ISBN 0-8155-1421-2.
↑ Longmate, Norman (1983). The bombers: the RAF offensive against Germany, 1939–1945. Hutchinson. p. 236. ISBN 0-09-151580-7.

External links

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101 to 200	Al 101 Al 102 Al 103 Fi 103 Fh 104 Kl 105 Kl 106 Kl 107 Bf 108 Bf 109 Bf 110 He 111 He 112 He 113 He 114 He 115 He 116 Hs 117 He 118 He 119 He 120 Hs 121 Hs 122 Hs 123 Hs 124 Hs 125 Hs 126 Hs 127 Hs 128 Hs 129 Hs 130 Bü 131 Hs 132 Bü 133 Bü 134 Ha 135 Ha 136 Hü 136 Ha 137 BV 138 Ha 139 Ha 140 BV 141 BV 142 BV 143 BV 144 Go 145 Go 146 Go 147 Ju 147 Go 149 Go 150 Kl 151 Ta 152 Kl 152 Ta 153 Ta 154 BV 155 Fi 156 Fi 157 Fi 158 Fw 159 Ju 160 Bf 161 He 162 Bf 162 Bf 163 Me 163 Me 164 Fi 166 FK 166 Fi 167 Fi 168 He 170 He 172 He 176 He 177 He 178 Bü 180 Bü 181 Bü 182 Ta 183 Fl 184 Fl 185 Fw 186 Ju 186 Fw 187 Ju 187 Ju 188 Fw 189 Fw 190 Fw 191 Ao 192 DFS 193 DFS 194 Ar 195 Ar 196 Ar 197 Ar 198 Ar 199 Fw 200

201 to 300	Si 201 Si 202 DFS 203 Si 204 Fw 206 Me 208 Me 209 Me 209 (1943) Me 210 Hü 211 Do 212 Do 214 Do 215 Do 216 Do 217 Hs 217 He 219 He 220 BV 222 Fa 223 Fa 224 Ao 225 Fa 225 BV 226 Ho 226 FGP 227 DFS 228 Ho 229 DFS 230 Ar 231 Ar 232 Ar 233 Ar 234 Do 235 BV 237 BV 238 Fw 238 Ar 239 Ar 240 Go 241 Go 242 Go 244 BV 246 Ju 248 BV 250 Fw 250 Ho 250 Ho 251 Ho 252 Ju 252 Fi 253 Ho 253 Ta 254 Ho 254 Fi 256 Sk 257 Fw 261 Me 261 Me 262 Me 263 Me 264 Fl 265 Me 265 Fa 266 Ho 267 Ju 268 Fa 269 He 270 We 271 Fw 272 He 274 He 275 He 277 He 278 He 280 Fl 282 Fa 283 Ta 283 Fa 284 Fl 285 Ju 286 Ju 287 Ju 288 Ju 290 Me 290 As 292 Hs 293 Hs 294 Hs 295 Ar 296 Hs 296 Hs 297 Hs 298 Fw 300

301-	Me 309 Me 310 Do 317 Do 318 He 319 Me 321 Ju 322 Me 323 Me 328 Me 329 Fa 330 DFS 331 DFS 332 Fi 333 Me 334 Do 335 Fa 336 Fl 339 E.340 WNF 342 He 343 Rk 344 So 344 Go 345 DFS 346 Rk 347 Ba 349 Ju 352 Me 362 Me 364 Ju 388 Ju 390 Fw 391 Ar 396 Ta 400 Me 409 Me 410 Do 417 He 419 ZMe 423 Ar 430 Ka 430 Ar 432 Do 435 Ar 440 Ju 452 Me 462 Ju 488 Fw 491 Me 509 Me 510 He 519 ZSO 523 Ar 532 Do 535 E.555 Me 609 Ar 632 Do 635

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