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#Post#: 11094--------------------------------------------------
Plane of the Week: Dornier 335
By: vonofterdingen Date: May 4, 2020, 11:13 am
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We often talk about “best” aircraft as WW2 enthusiasts.
Another discussion, of course, is “fastest.” Of piston engine
aircraft, when I think fastest I tend to think P-51 or Mosquito.
But the real-world winner is most likely this lesser-known
German plane, the Dornier 335. Its push-pull design, powerful
engines, and aerodynamic design made it probably the fastest
piston engine aircraft of the period. It was made in small
numbers however and did not have a major impact on the defense
of Germany.
From Wikipedia:
The Dornier Do 335 Pfeil ("Arrow") was a Nazi Germany World
War II heavy fighter built by the Dornier company. The
two-seater trainer version was called Ameisenbär ("anteater").
The Pfeil's performance was much better than other twin-engine
designs due to its unique push-pull configuration and the lower
aerodynamic drag of the in-line alignment of the two engines. It
was Nazi Germany's fastest piston-engined aircraft of World War
II. The Luftwaffe was desperate to get the design into
operational use, but delays in engine deliveries meant that only
a handful were delivered before the war ended.
The origins of the Do 335 trace back to World War I when Claude
Dornier designed a number of flying boats featuring remotely
driven propellers and later, due to problems with the drive
shafts, tandem engines. Tandem engines were used on most of the
multi-engine Dornier flying boats that followed, including the
highly successful Do J Wal and the gigantic Do X. The remote
propeller drive, intended to eliminate parasitic drag from the
engine entirely, was tried in the innovative but unsuccessful Do
14, and elongated, tubular drive shafts as later used in the Do
335 saw use in the rear engines of the four-engined, twinned
tandem-layout Do 26 flying boat.
There are many advantages to this design over the more
traditional system of placing one engine on each wing, the most
important being power from two engines with the frontal area
(and thus drag) of a single-engine design, allowing for higher
performance. It also keeps the weight of the twin powerplants
near, or on, the aircraft centerline, increasing the roll rate
compared to a traditional twin. In addition, a single engine
failure does not lead to asymmetric thrust, and in normal flight
there is no net torque, so the plane is easy to handle. The
four-surface set of cruciform tail surfaces in the Do 335's rear
fuselage design included a ventral vertical fin–rudder assembly
to project downwards from the extreme rear of the fuselage, in
order to protect the rear propeller from an accidental ground
strike on takeoff. The presence of the rear pusher propeller
also mandated the provision for an ejection seat for safe escape
from a damaged aircraft, and designing the rear propeller and
dorsal fin mounts to use explosive bolts to jettison them before
an ejection was attempted – as well as twin canopy jettison
levers, one per side located to either side of the forward
cockpit interior just below the sills of the five-panel
windscreen's sides, to jettison the canopy from atop the cockpit
before ejection.
In 1939, Dornier was busy working on the P.59 high-speed
bomber project, which featured the tandem engine layout. In
1940, he commissioned a test aircraft, closely modeled on the
airframe of the early versions of the Dornier Do 17 bomber but
only 40% of the size of the larger bomber, with no aerodynamic
bodies of any sort on the wing panels (the original Do 17 had
twin engine nacelles on its wings) and fitted with a retractable
tricycle landing gear to validate his concept for turning the
rear pusher propeller with an engine located far away from it,
through the use of a long tubular driveshaft. This aircraft, the
Göppingen Gö 9, showed no unforeseen difficulties with this
arrangement, but work on the P.59 was stopped in early 1940 when
Hermann Göring ordered the cancellation of all projects that
would not be completed within a year or so.
In May 1942, Dornier submitted an updated version with a
1,000 kg (2,200 lb) bombload as the P.231, in response to a
requirement for a single seat, Schnellbomber-like high-speed
bomber/intruder. The P.231 proposal was selected as the winner
after beating rival designs from Arado, Junkers, and Blohm &
Voss development contract was awarded, by the RLM issuing the
Dornier firm the airframe approval number 8-335, for what would
become known as the Do 335. In autumn 1942, Dornier was told
that the Do 335 was no longer required, and instead a multi-role
fighter based on the same general layout would be accepted. This
delayed the prototype delivery as it was modified for the new
role.
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The use of a nose-mount annular radiator for the forward
engine (much like a Jumo 211-powered Ju 88, or Jumo 213-powered
Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9) and a ventral-fuselage mount airscooped
radiator installation for cooling the rear engine (appearing
like that on a P-51 Mustang) was distinctive. When fitted with
DB 603A engines delivering 1,750 PS (1,287 kW, 1,726 hp) at
takeoff it had a pair of the largest displacement (at 44.52
litres) inverted V12 aircraft engine design mass-produced during
the Third Reich's existence. The Do 335 V1 first prototype,
bearing the Stammkennzeichen (factory radio code) of CP+UA, flew
on 26 October 1943 under the control of Flugkapitän Hans
Dieterle, a regular Heinkel test pilot and later primary Dornier
test pilot. However, several problems during the initial flight
of the Do 335 would continue to plague the aircraft through most
of its short history. Issues were found with the weak landing
gear and with the main gear's wheel well doors, resulting in
them being removed for the remainder of the V1's test flights.
The Do 335 V1 made 27 flights, flown by three different pilots.
During these test flights the V2 (W.Nr 230002), Stammkennzeichen
CP+UB was completed and made its first flight on 31 December
1943, again under the control of Dieterle. New to the V2 were
upgraded DB 603A-2 engines, and several refinements learned from
the test flights of the V1 as well as further windtunnel
testing. On 20 January 1944, the Do 335 V3 (W.Nr. 230004),
Stammkennzeichen CP+UC was completed and flown for its first
time by Werner Altrogge. The V3 was powered by the new
pre-production DB 603G-0 engines which could produce 1,900 PS
(1,400 kW) at take-off and featured a slightly redesigned canopy
which included twin rear-view mirrors in blisters, one in each
of two matching side panels of the well-framed, eleven-panel
main canopy's openable section. Following the flights of the V3,
in mid January 1944, RLM ordered five more prototypes (V21–V25),
to be built as night fighters. By this time, more than 60 hours
of flight time had been put on the Do 335 and reports showed it
to be a good handling, but more importantly, very fast aircraft,
described by Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch himself as
"...holding its own in speed and altitude with the P-38 and it
does not suffer from engine reliability issues". Thus the Do 335
was scheduled to begin mass construction, with the initial order
of 120 preproduction aircraft to be manufactured by DWF
(Dornier-Werke Friedrichshafen) to be completed no later than
March 1946. This number included a number of bombers, destroyers
(heavy fighters), and several yet to be developed variants. At
the same time, DWM (Dornier-Werke München) was scheduled to
build over 2000 Do 335s in various models, due for delivery in
March 1946 as well.
On 23 May 1944, Hitler, as part of the developing
Jägernotprogramm (Emergency Fighter Program) directive, which
took effect on 3 July, ordered maximum priority to be given to
Do 335 production. The main production line was intended to be
at Manzell, but a bombing raid in March destroyed the tooling
and forced Dornier to set up a new line at Oberpfaffenhofen. The
decision was made, along with the rapid shut-down of many other
military aircraft development programs, to cancel the Heinkel He
219 night fighter, which also used the DB 603 engines (in
well-unitized installations), and use its production facilities
for the Do 335 as well. However, Ernst Heinkel managed to delay,
and eventually ignore, its implementation, continuing to produce
examples of the He 219A.
At least 16 prototype Do 335s were known to have flown (V1–V12,
W.Nr 230001-230012 and Muster-series prototypes M13–M17, W.Nr
230013-230017) on a number of DB603 engine subtypes including
the DB 603A, A-2, G-0, E and E-1. The first preproduction Do 335
(A-0s) starting with W.Nr 240101, Stammkennzeichen VG+PG, were
delivered in July 1944. Approximately 22 preproduction aircraft
were thought to have been completed and flown before the end of
the war, including approximately 11 A-0s converted to A-11s for
training purposes. One such aircraft was transferred to the
Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, and later, after a
rear-engine fire burnt through the elevator controls during a
flight, crashed onto a local school.
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In game…
The Dornier 335 is one of the fastest aircraft in IL-2. I’m
not sure but I think it is the fastest piston-engine aircraft I
have flown in the game. And unlike the German jet fighters, it
is not prone to catching fire whenever I touch the throttle. Not
only is it fast but it is also heavily armed. This is a great
combination as you might imagine. I had not flown the plane
prior to the offline challenge mission on this site. Since then
I have been playing around with it quite often. The speed of the
aircraft is remarkable and the weaponry will handle any
situation.
French ace Pierre Clostermann claimed the first Allied combat
encounter with a Do 335 in April 1945. He described leading a
flight of four Hawker Tempests from No. 3 Squadron RAF over
northern Germany, when he intercepted a lone Do 335 flying at
maximum speed at treetop level. Detecting the British aircraft,
the German pilot reversed course to evade. Despite the Tempests'
considerable low altitude speed, the Royal Air Force fighters
were not able to catch up or even get into firing position
#Post#: 11109--------------------------------------------------
Re: Plane of the Week: Dornier 335
By: Beowolff Date: May 5, 2020, 1:36 pm
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Great POTW, Von! Assuredly a sort of 'forgotten' plane as
nobody hardly ever mentions it. d'oh! But, as you mentions it
is a worthy plane to fly and a REAL combat plane of WW2. I
admit, as with other German types, I seldom fly it and in fact
likely haven't flown it in years... but as you say, it IS
worthy!
Good read on this and nice research too. Good work! And yeah,
I WILL be flying this soon.
S! ;)
Beo
#Post#: 11112--------------------------------------------------
Re: Plane of the Week: Dornier 335
By: larsresult Date: May 5, 2020, 3:33 pm
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Probably my favourite Luftwaffe fighter from Secret Weapons of
the Luftwaffe back in the day.
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