Focke-Wulf Fw P.TSF (Turboprop Strike Fighter)

Turboprop / Turbojet Powered Strike Fighter Proposal [ 1944 ]

This German wartime entry from Focke-Wulf attempted to incorporate a hybrid powerplant scheme for the strike fighter role.

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Advancement in turbojet design technology for Germany during World War 2 (1939-1945) inevitably led to a multitude of design forms emerging from the base players like Messerschmitt, Blohm und Voss, and Focke-Wulf. For Focke-Wulf, makers of the classic Fw 190 single-seat, single-engine fighter of the wartime period, the offerings were a deep stable of conventional and unconventional designs. With each new iteration, proposals grew in their promised performance figures and complexity.

The P.VII "Flitzer" was a project fighter of 1943 incorporating a twin-boom fuselage design with a centralized "pod" to hold the cockpit, engine, fuel stores, and some of the proposed cannon armament. Power was to come from a single Heinkel HeS 011 turbojet paired with a Walter HWK 109-509A liquid-fueled rocket motor for additional thrust output power. This single-seat, single-engine offering ended with only a mockup being worked on before the close of the war in Europe in May of 1945.

From this work, however, spawned a series of designs by the company which numbered seven, with one entry destined for the strike fighter role but incorporating both a turbojet engine (exhausting aft) and a propeller (mounted to the nose). The combination powerplant scheme promised all sorts of performance gains to outclass anything the Allies could field between 1942-1944. Much of the influence of the Flitzer remained including an all-cannon armament scheme, twin-boom tail unit, and single-seat configuration.

Like the Flitzer before it, this seventh design went nowhere but resulted in a refinement of the idea through a more conventional design arrangement in November of 1944. The rearrangement was mainly due to the inherent deficiencies of the twin-boom, hybrid powerplant scheme which was abandoned for the a more streamlined look showcasing traditional lines.

At its core, the strike platform remained a single-seat, hybrid-powered offering but its fuselage was a complete, sleek unit from nose to tail. The mainplanes were mid-mounted and swept-back, each root given an intake opening to aspirate the air-breathing turbojet buried within the fuselage. The engine was fitted low in the design and exhausted from under the empennage. The nose contained the prop unit just ahead of the cockpit, the cockpit itself seated just ahead of the mainplanes for excellent vision. The tail unit extended a distance away from the engine exhaust port below and was made up of a single vertical plane straddled by swept-back, small-area horizontal planes. For ground-running, a wholly-retractable tricycle arrange was to be used - giving the aircraft a slight "nose-up" attitude when on the ground.

Propulsion power would be handled by the combination Daimler-Benz DB 109-021 (Heinkel HeS011) turboprop/turbojet engine, a drive shaft used to spin the propeller blades. The propeller unit was a 9.2 foot three-bladed fixture at the nose and of variable pitch. The turboprop was rated up to 2,000 horsepower output with the jet adding some 1,697lb of thrust.

Dimensionally, the aircraft was drawn up with a length of 10.8 meters, a height of 3.1 meters, and a wingspan of 8.2 meters given 31-degrees of sweepback at the leading edge (less so along the trailing edge). Empty weight was estimated at 7,500lb against a Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) value of nearly 11,000lb. This gave flexibility on the amount and types of air-dropped/air-launched ordnance that could be carried by the strike aircraft.

As far was performance was concerned, engineers believed their design could reach speeds of 560 miles-per-hour at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Range would be out to 635 miles with a mission endurance window of about 1.15 hour.

As one of the Luftwaffe's "paper airplane" projects, this Focke-Wulf entry never materialized to make any sort of impact upon the outcome of the war. The design was intriguing in that a similar project was undertaken by the Americans in the post-war period, the Republic XF-84H (originally as the XF-106) of which only two prototypes were completed. The performance gains were there but the complexity and other available options moved to doom such expensive, novel projects in the build-up of the Cold War sides.

Nevertheless, the Focke-Wulf turbo-prop / turbojet single-seat strike fighter would have been a fascinating development for the World War 2 period - that is if German had not the great need for interceptors and fighters by war's end that it did.©MilitaryFactory.com

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Specifications

Focke-Wulf - Nazi Germany
Manufacturer(s)

Nazi Germany (proposed)
Operators

1944
Service Year

Nazi Germany
National Origin

Cancelled
Project Status

1
Crew

0
Units

AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT
General ability to actively engage other aircraft of similar form and function, typically through guns, missiles, and/or aerial rockets.

CLOSE-AIR SUPPORT
Developed to operate in close proximity to active ground elements by way of a broad array of air-to-ground ordnance and munitions options.

X-PLANE
Aircraft developed for the role of prototyping, technology demonstration, or research / data collection.

ARMORING
Survivability enhanced by armor allocated to protect pilot / crewspaces and / or critical operating systems.

MULTI-ENGINE
Incorporates two or more engines, enhancing survivability and / or performance.

MIXED-POWERPLANT
Utilizes two or more types of propulsion systems to achieve desired performance / flight actions.

WING SWEEPBACK
Mainplanes, or leading edges, features swept-back lines for enhanced high-speed performance and handling.

RUGGED AIRFRAME
Inherent ability of airframe to take considerable damage.

HIGH-SPEED PERFORMANCE
Can accelerate to higher speeds than average aircraft of its time.

HIGH-ALTITUDE PERFORMANCE
Can reach and operate at higher altitudes than average aircraft of its time.

EXTENDED RANGE PERFORMANCE
Capability to travel considerable distances through onboard fuel stores.

SUPER PERFORMANCE
Design covers the three all-important performance categories of speed, altitude, and range.

PILOT / CREW EJECTION SYSTEM
Assisted process of allowing its pilot and / or crew to eject in the event of an airborne emergency.

CREWSPACE PRESSURIZATION
Supports pressurization required at higher operating altitudes for crew survival.

ENCLOSED CREWSPACE(S)
Features partially- or wholly-enclosed crew workspaces.

RETRACTABLE UNDERCARRIAGE
Features retracting / retractable undercarriage to preserve aerodynamic efficiency.

35.4 ft
(10.80 meters)
Length

26.9 ft
(8.20 meters)
Width/Span

10.2 ft
(3.10 meters)
Height

7,496 lb
(3,400 kilograms)
Empty Weight

11,023 lb
(5,000 kilograms)
Maximum Take-Off Weight

+3,527 lb
(+1,600 kg)
Weight Difference

monoplane / mid-mounted / swept-back
Mainplane Arrangement

Monoplane
Design utilizes a single primary wing mainplane; this represents the most popular modern mainplane arrangement.

Mid-Mounted
Mainplanes are mounted along the midway point of the sides of the fuselage.

Swept-Back
The planform features wing sweep back along the leading edges of the mainplane, promoting higher operating speeds.

1 x Daimler-Benz DB109-021 turboprop (HeS 011 turbojet) driving three-bladed propeller unit at the nose (via shaft) at 2,000 horsepower and 1,697lb of thrust generated by the jet exhaust.
Propulsion

559 mph
(900 kph | 486 knots)
Max Speed

32,808 ft
(10,000 m | 6 miles)
Ceiling

634 miles
(1,020 km | 551 nm)
Range

MACH Regime (Sonic)

Sub

Trans

Super

Hyper

HiHyper

ReEntry

♦

ASSUMED:
2 x 30mm automatic cannons under the nose.
2 x 20mm autocannons in the wingroots (one gun per wing root).

As a strike fighter, the platform would have been equipped to carry rockets, bombs, and external fuel tanks.

0
Hardpoints

P.TSF - "Turboprop Strike Fighter"; no official designation was given this design.

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