Interesting pics of the Ju 287

I have copies of the books Junkers Ju 287: The World’s First Swept-Wing Jet Aircraft by Horst Lommel (Schiffer Publishing, 2004) and Junkers Ju 287: Germany’s Forward Swept Wing Bomber by Stephen Ransom and Peter Korrell (Ian Allan Publishing, 2008), and they have given me an opportunity to correct the historical record regarding subsequent Ju 287 prototypes and a few other aspects of the Ju 287’s gestation:

1. Everyone knows the first Ju 287 prototype, because it was merely intended to test forward swept wing technology. However, this aircraft was not optimized for high-speed testing, which was the intended goal of the second Ju 287 prototype. The Ju 287 V2 was a six-engine plane like the Ju 287 V3, but was actually built from the same components as the first Ju 287 prototype. However, the second Ju 287 prototype (assigned the Stammkennzeichen code RS+RB) differed from the first prototype in having the horizontal stabilizer lowered by 12 inches (30 cm), the main undercarriage struts having an inward cant, the tail wheel removed, and trouser pants for the nose undercarriage painted in light color.

2. The engine arrangement for Ju 287 V2 (and Ju 287 V3 and the production series aircraft as well) originally was to feature two fuselage mounted Jumo 004s and four BMW 003As in pairs under the wings. However, after wind tunnel tests revealed aerodynamic problems with this engine arrangement, Junkers decided to change the engine configuration for the Ju 287 V2 and the planned production Ju 287 (as well as Ju 287 V3) to two clover leaf-shaped pods of jet engines under the wings,. This could partly explain why some authors confused the Ju 287 V3 and EF 131 with the Ju 287 V2, because they had six engines like V2.

3. The Ju 287 V3 (powered by six BMW 003A turbojets) was to be unarmed, even though it was the first of four Ju 287 prototypes to reflect the design of the production Ju 287, which was basically a jet-powered, swept-wing Ju 288/388 with retractable tricycle landing gear. Three more Ju 287 prototypes were planned, V4 was to be the planned prototype for the Ju 287A-1 production version, and V5 and V6 being intended to be fitted armament. The Ju 287 V3 and V4 were under construction during the last months of World War II in Europe, with V3 having reached 80-90 percent completion and Ju 287 V4 reportedly being 60 percent complete.

4. The Ju 287 V2 was nearing completion by early September 1944 when it was shipped to Brandis, only waiting to be fitted with the BMW and Jumo jet engines. However, the triple engine pod arrangement wasn’t fitted to the Ju 287 V2 due to the cancellation of the Ju 287 program in late September.

5. The first and second Ju 287 prototypes were blown up by retreating German troops at Brandis in early 1945 to avoid falling into the hands of approaching Allied forces. However, US troops entered Brandis on April 16, 1945, and they also captured the Junkers plant in Dessau the same month. The Dessau factory was later handed over to Soviet forces in summer 1945, and remnants of the second Ju 287 prototype, including the wings would be used in construction of the EF 131.

6. Because Ju 287 V2 was blown up by German forces at Brandis, and Ju 287 V3 was incomplete, neither V2 nor V3 flew in the USSR after World War II as claimed in some older books; the claim that Ju 287 V3 flew 200 flying hours in the Soviet Union is erroneous, as the FSW bomber flown in the USSR in 1947-1948 was the EF 131 and not the Ju 287 V2 or V3.

That said, the second Ju 287 prototype was a Frankenstein plane like the first Ju 287 prototype, while Ju 287 V3 was never intended to possess armament (V5 and V6 were the armed prototypes), and Ju 287 V2 and V3 never flew. I’ve attached a diagram depicting the first three Ju 287 prototypes (from the 1991 issue of the Aviatik magazine) to give everyone an idea of what the second and third Ju 287 prototypes would have looked like had they flown.

Blimey! A veritable mine of info! Thanks fightingirish! 🙂

1. EF 140
2. IL- 215 (“bicycle” landing gear configuration test bed!)
3. EF 150
4. Ju 287
5. Early version EF 150

And some more pic’s:
6. EF 140
7. First German passenger jet “152” (also called “Baade 152”)
8. EF 150
9. HFB 320 Hansa Jet D-CHFB before the first flight

So, hope you all enjoy the part of german-russian aviation history! 🙂

See you,

fightingirish

Junkers engineers in the USSR

Hi folks, hi Ja Worsley,

after WW II. Wocke, Baade and a lot of other Junkers engineers and technics were forced to work for several years in the Soviet Union where they developed several military jets.
The OKB-1 EF 140 was a prototype aircraft developed in the Soviet Union originally conceived as a bomber, but later considered as a reconnaissance machine. The aircraft was a follow-on from the Junkers Ju 287 bomber prototype, but while it used the same basic layout and engineering concepts, it was an entirely new design by Brunolf Baade.

Only one EF 140 was actually built, and began flight tests on March 15 1949, using Rolls-Royce Nene engines as the intended Mikulin units were not yet ready. The project was cancelled before the second prototype was complete.

Baade and his team developed at the OKB from S.M. Alexejew then in 1948 the OKB-1 EF 150 as a bomber. It didn’t have forward-swept wings anymore, because the sucess of back-swept wings (35°) . It had 2 engines, Ljulka AL-5 with 2*5000 kp, on pylons under the wings (80°) and a “bicycle” landing gear configuration ( just like the Boeing B-47 😀 ). This gear configuratin was tested on the the experimentel fighter IL-215.
Construction began in 1951 of the first prototype, which flew first on the 05.Oktober 1952 in Lu-chowitzy. Until April 1953 EF-150 flew 16 times. It had problems with landing gear and brakes configuration. On 09.Mai 1953, during landings trails the brake parachute suddenly opened so the fuselage, engines and gears got heavily dameged. At that time there was competion between the OKB’s in the USSR. The IL-28 “Beagle” first flew 1950, the TU-88, aka Tu-16 “Badger” first flew in winter 1953, so they had no need for the EF-150.The plane EF-150 was eventually scrapped.
Wocke and Baade returned to Germany from 1950 to 1954 and took part in the development of the East-German aeronautics industry. As chief developer of the VEB Flugzeugwerft Dresden Hans Wocke was involved in the construction of the first German passenger jet “152” (also called “Baade 152”).
But in 1957 Wocke went to West-Germany (before the first flight of the “152” in 1958), where he came to the Hamburger Flugzeugbau (HFB). The design of HansaJet was started in March 1961. It was intended primarily as a 6/11-seat executive transport, but was projected also as 12-passenger feeder-liner and for a variety of military duties. The prototype of the HFB 320 Hansa Jet reg. D-CHFB took off for first flight at Hamburg-Finkenwerder by Loren William Davis and H. Bardill on April 21st, 1964. The flight lasted for 73 minutes and went to Bremen-Lemwerder. The first deliv-ery to a customer was to General Air of Hamburg in March 1968. Two prototypes and 45 aircraft were produced.

Here some facts over OKB-1 EF 140

Description

Role Bomber/reconnaisance prototype
Crew: 3

Dimensions
Length 19.70m 63′
Wingspan 19.40m 62′ 1″
Height 5.70m 18′ 3″
Wing area 58.4m² 627ft²

Weights
Empty 12,500kg 27,500 lb
Loaded 24,500kg 53,900 lb
Maximum take-off 27,000kg 59,400 lb

Powerplant
Engines 2x Mikulin AM-01 turbojets
Power 68.7kN 15,400 lb

Performance
Maximum speed 1,230km/h 767 mph
Range 2,500km 1,558 miles
Service ceiling 12,300m 40,000ft
Rate of Climb

Armament
Guns 4x 23mm machine guns
in 2 remotely-controlled turrets
Bombs None
production version was to carry
4,500kg (9,900 lbs)

The facts of the EF-150 I have only found in russian: 😡
http://legion.wplus.net/guide/air/b/150.shtml
Facts over the Baade 152 or HansaJet, just google around! 😉
And, at last, some pic’s:

I wonder what the PFA would have made of it?! :p

Well that’s that cleared up, thanks guys.

that is a cine camera flood.

coanda

I wonder what the noise level was like in the cockpit. 🙂
mmitch.

Note the large counter balance just forward of the tail, anyone know what it was there for, did the plane have serious roll issues?

Suspect that this is in fact a mounted cine camera to view the airflow – the fuselage has tufts of wool on it…

Flood.™

fightingirish: Thanks for the facinating insight to this ugly but productive plane. I wonder if the Russians will ever divuldge any details of secret projects of their post war trials aircraft, not only this one but any others they might have had?

😀 I forgot some facts: 😮

Junkers Ju 287 V1

Description
Role Bomber prototype
Crew two, pilot and co-pilot

Dimensions
Length 18.30m 60′
Wingspan 20.11m 65′ 11″
Height 4.70m 15′
Wing area 61m² 655ft²

Weights
Empty 12,500kg 27,500 lb
Loaded 20,000kg 44,000 lb
Maximum take-off ???

Powerplant
Engines 4x Junkers Jumo 004B-1 turbojets
Power 35.3kN 8,182 lb

Performance
Maximum speed 560km/h 348 mph
Range 980km 1570 miles
Service ceiling 9,400m 30,000ft
Rate of Climb 575m/min 1,840ft/min

Armament
Guns None
production version was to have
2x 13mm MG 131 machine guns
in tail turret
Bombs None
production version was to carry
4,000kg (8,800 lbs)

Anyway, it is the big ugly grandfather of the Grumman X-29, HansaJet and Su-47! 😀
fightingirish

You guys know that the EF131 was the first Soviet jet bomber? Was much faster than anything else the Russians had, and they feared that pilots might try to skedaddle to Western Europe, so they never gave them more than 30min worth of fuel.

Forward swept wing Bomber!

The Junkers Ju 287 was a flying testbed built to develop the technology required for a multi-engined jet bomber aircraft. It was powered by four Junkers Jumo 004 engines, featured a revolutionary swept forward wing and was built largely from scavenged components from other aircraft. The flying prototype and an unfinished second prototype were captured by the Red Army in the closing stages of World War II and the design was further developed in the Soviet Union after the end of the conflict.

The Ju 287 was intended to provide the Luftwaffe with a bomber that could avoid interception by outrunning enemy fighters. The swept-forward wing was suggested by the project’s head designer, Dr Hans Wocke as a way of providing extra lift at low airspeeds – necessary because of the poor responsiveness of early turbojets at the vulnerable times of take-off and landing. The first prototype was intended to evaluate the concept, and was cobbled together from the fuselage of a Heinkel He 177, the tail of a Junkers Ju 388, main undercarriage from a Junkers Ju 352, and nosewheels taken from crashed B-24 Liberators. Two of the Jumo 004 engines were hung under the wings, with the other two mounted in nacelles added to the sides of the forward fuselage.

Flight tests began on August 16 1944, with the aircraft displaying extremely good handling characteristics, as well as revealing some of the problems of the forward-swept wing under some flight conditions. Tests also suggested that the aircraft would benefit from concentrating more engine mass under the wings, a feature that was to be incorporated on the subsequent prototypes. These were to have been powered by Heinkel HeS.11 engines, but because of the development problems experienced with that motor, the BMW 003 was selected in its place. The second and third prototypes were to have six of these engines, the former with a cluster of three under each wing, the latter with two under each wing and one on each side of the fuselage, as the first prototype had. These machines were to have all-new, purpose designed fuselages, and the third prototype was also to carry armament and serve as the development aircraft for a production version.

Before the second prototype was complete, though, the Junkers factory was over-run. Wocke and his staff, along with the two prototype aircraft, were taken to the Soviet Union. There, the second prototype (returned to its original Junkers in-house designation, EF-131) was eventually finished and flown on May 23 1947, but by that time, jet development had already overtaken the Ju 287. A final much-enlarged derivative, the OKB-1 EF 140 was tested in prototype form in 1949 but soon abandoned.

For more information about “Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe”, I recommend following link:
http://www.luft46.com/ 😉 😀

fightingirish

Was only a prototype, no operational action. Note: Those twin nosewheels are from captured/salvaged B-24.

God that’s ugly! :p