Arado Ar 68
The Arado Ar 68 was a German single-seat biplane, the 1931 was designed and built as a fighter.
Development
The Arado Ar 68 was the last biplane of the Air Force, and was developed in parallel with the Heinkel He 51 as a successor to the Arado Ar 65 in order to equip the 1935 Deconstructed young Luftwaffe quickly with larger numbers can. She had a three-piece upper wing and a smaller, two-piece lower wing. In its maiden flight in 1934, she showed excellent controllability and performance, although Arado had problems with the reliability and performance of the engine BMW VId. Ultimately, the Junkers Jumo -210 reliable engine was installed and the machine went into production, although there were some concerns about the problems with the tolerance to pilot error that endangered the project. Overall, the Ar was 68 its competitors Heinkel He 51 inferior.
Use
In 1936, the first machines were made in the Air Force in East Prussia in service and soon used it during the Spanish Civil War for the first time. It was found that they were the Republican machine inferior type Polikarpov I-16. Arado responded by launching the E - model, which was the most widespread aircraft of the Luftwaffe until the introduction of the Messerschmitt Bf 109. In 1940 were the last ones who had not yet served as a night fighter with flame dampers and Nachttarnanstrich, then finally retired. As training aircraft, the Ar 68 was used until 1944.
A total of 511 Ar 68 were built. The series production ran from April 1936 to January 1938. The first 150 aircraft have been delivered as Ar 68 F with BMW VI, the rest as Ar 68 E with Jumo 210 The production took place in the Arado -Werke Warnemünde and Brandenburg ad Havel, as well as under license Erla Leipzig (76 pieces) and the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW, later Messerschmitt AG) in Augsburg.
Versions
- Ar 68a: First prototype with BMW VId
- Ar 68b: Second prototype with liquid cooled 12 -cyl engine Junkers Jumo 210A
- Ar 68c: Third prototype with liquid cooled 12 -cyl engine Jumo 210A and an armament of two 7.92 mm MG 17 with 500 rounds per gun.
- Ar 68d: pre-production model with BMW VI. Featured so that the Ar 68 E -0.
- Ar 68e: pre-production model with the Jumo 210Da. Ar is referred to as V- 68 5. Under the new designation system was performed as Ar 68 E -0.
- Ar 68 F -1: production model with steel tube fuselage and Metallbeplankung, but fabric-covered wings wooden frame. Due to delivery difficulties of the Jumo 210, the Ar was 68 F preferred with BMW VI 7,3 Z as an interim model of e in the spring / summer of 1936. The power was 750 hp take-off power. She served the initial of Jagdgeschwader 134 " Horst Wessel " at the airbase Werl.
- Ar 68 E-1: Final production version with Jumo 210Da with 640 hp, which was later replaced with the Jumo 210Ea. They formed the original of Jagdgeschwader Schlageter
- Ar 68 H: prototype (D - ISIX ) from the spring of 1937 with an air-cooled 9-cylinder radial engine BMW 132Da with 800 to 850 hp, a closed cockpit and two additional MG 17 on the upper wing. The top speed was 306 km / h in sea level and 335 km / h in 2650 m height. For this type of board fighter Arado Ar 197 for the planned aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was derived later.