Aircraft for medical evacuations

[waldzee]

[Split from "Ju 52/3M payload/range charts"]

to get back on topic:
Three-bladed Hamilton Standard propellers with pitch adjustable in the air, were fitted. The non-retractable undercarriage was equipped with double brakes that operated separately on each wheel. The fixed undercarriage appeared to be a backward step compared with the retractable gear on the F.XX. But on the earlier aircraft it had been possible to retract the wheels into the engine nacelles which were underslung. On the F.XXXVI, the nacelles were positioned much higher, making the undercarriage legs much longer and difficult to retract.

Also, the wheels, specially produced for the F.XXXVI by Dunlop, were too large to stow within the nacelles. The large 70 in diameter of the wheels was necessary to prevent the F.XXXVI, with its high take-off weight of 36,376 lb, from sinking into the mud on unprepared airfield surfaces.
From: http://www.dutch-aviation.nl/index5/Civ ... 20F36.html

For the 'bounce' into Stalingrad fixed gear & rugged cosntruction in a Russian winter trumps 'retractable'. The Axis captured the Fokker factories intact- & didn't forsee the airlift.

[phylo_roadking]

However...remember that Fokker was often busy doing other things For instance, through the second half of 1940 repairing Ju52s damaged in Holland in May...

[Urmel]

Not sure this is the right thread to discuss GAF aircraft selection. In any case - no rough field capability, four engines, wooden wings (the GAF had issues with the Fokker floatplane wings and had to ground those late in 41) less range, only about 50% more in cargo carrying capacity based on Empty vs TOW... The plane doesn't strike me as a massive improvement? Probably better than the FW200, but certainly no match for the Junkers 90.

[waldzee]

However...remember that Fokker was often busy doing other things For instance, through the second half of 1940 repairing Ju52s damaged in Holland in May...

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good point,& the kollhoven factory in Rotterdam was 'torched'.
so perhaps it was jsut a question of space .
However, the flying pipe bag actually carries twice as much as the ju-52 on 25% more power,& is a lot more field reparable than a FW 200 Condor.- & was debugged compared to the me 323..
A Huge advantage of Non flammable cloth covering, as the Vickers Wellington proves, is that it dissipates an explosive shell.
Hop into Stalingrad, LAND ON MUD, hop cross the Don river, land on frozen gravel, doesn't need speed .

[phylo_roadking]

A Huge advantage of Non flammable cloth covering, as the Vickers Wellington proves, is that it dissipates an explosive shell.

Aircraft fabric doesn't dissipate HE shells...it just shreds more easily "locally" and thus less catastrophically than alloy skinning...and shrapnel etc. has to actually hit them to damage the frame members underneath.

But I'm not sure (Schilling Roads' ) that using the Wellington as an example is the best thing to do

But the main thing against the Germans' uptaking of the Fokker F.XXXVI was simply that it was too old; it was dead and gone as an aircraft as far as Fokker were concerned by the end of 1936, with no orders forthcoming. It was another five years before the Germans took possession of Fokker. Without series production...there was no F.XXXVI tooling to take possession of. As a single prototype, it would have been virtually handbuilt - moreso because of its simple welded tube construction, and fabric and wood covering. Building it required personal skills...not manufacturing technology.

Even if series production had ever started - with that huge input of more traditional skills and handfinishing, construction times would conceivably have been quite lengthy.

& didn't forsee the airlift.

The Stalingrad air bridge, yes...but they certainly as early as Poland saw the need proven for STOL transport aircraft keeping forward "scratch" airfields supplied, for keeping forward combat units supplied; Richthofen for instance suffered at least three days of greatly diminished operations for his CAS aircraft in Poland because his Ju52s keeping them supplied and munition'd were taken away to keep the Heer supplied The initial German lesson was that it was transport aircraft capable of rough field work that were needed - not those requiring long hardened/metalled runways!

[waldzee]

The Me323 was ‘overambitious’ – so they never got the production numbers needed when the bugs were finally worked out! German engineers were encouraged; it appears to go for the complex solution, which is tough to do when you are working with non-strategic material.
(As the Budd Corporation found out.)
What the Heer needed was a sort of ‘siege flying ambulance’- chocolate bars & plasma in to Stalingrad, stretcher cases out- to complement the me 323.
Germany built less than 100 Ju- 90 & 290’s combined, & only 200 me- 323’s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me323

[Urmel]

Luftwaffe procurement is another wholly separate topic. But for the Me 323, sure it was complicated, but on the other hand, there weren't many planes that could take a whole 88 set (gun, prime mover, crew, and presumably ammo) or equivalent that I am aware of. Frontloading to allow bulky stuff, lots of lift. For specialised purposes it was a great plane, and the engines it used were surplus to requirement by the GAF. I haven't seen anyone proposing it should have formed the backbone of the GAF transport fleet, so that appears to be a red herring? If there had been a need for a complicated high-performance transport plane with limited utility on rough fields to replace the Tante Ju, the Ju 90 or a derivative of it would have been it. There wasn't, really, and what there was could be covered by the SM.82 after 1943 (and if they had been desperate for it they could have produced the SM.82 under license before). That was pretty much the best large-volume transport plane of the war.

They needed something like the Tante Ju with better performance in terms of speed, useful payload, etc. Maybe a straightforward copy of the DC-3 would have answered, but of course the engines would have competed with fighter engines. But the idea of dusting off an obsolete and compromised Dutch or Polish design somehow fails to impress. The GAF planners were pretty stupid, but even they must have seen that was a non-starter.

[phylo_roadking]

What the Heer needed was a sort of ‘siege flying ambulance’- chocolate bars & plasma in to Stalingrad, stretcher cases out- to complement the me 323

Well...they HAD one! They were using reconfigured He111s!

They needed something like the Tante Ju with better performance in terms of speed, useful payload, etc.

You mean like...the Ju252? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_252

[Urmel]

More like the 352, probably.

[phylo_roadking]

I'm not sure; everywhere you see the 352 discussed on the Net they describe the 352 as being inferior to the 252. It was certainly over 40 mph slower.

[waldzee]

I'm not sure; everywhere you see the 352 discussed on the Net they describe the 352 as being inferior to the 252. It was certainly over 40 mph slower.

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Plus they only produced 65 of the ju-252 plus 352 in total!
Its amusing when posters propose the 'wunderluftflotten' - when tough in quantity was the solution...not performance!

The Heinkel 111 was a 'best last moment ' solution- if I remember correctly the freight conversions were plagued by a narrow fuselage, which is tough for stretcher care transport- & the Stalingrad hop was tough on the Heinkels cable landing gear..
The UsAAF bought over 750 'obsolete design' Norsemen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noorduyn_Norseman for the wide fuselage & LOADING DOORS , to evacuate casualities form strips too rough for DC-3ès
§teel Tube & fabric makes an exceptionally tough short haul aircraft.

[Urmel]

I'm not sure; everywhere you see the 352 discussed on the Net they describe the 352 as being inferior to the 252. It was certainly over 40 mph slower.

But better than the Ju 52, and not using high-powered engines and an abundance of metal.

[Urmel]

The UsAAF bought over 750 'obsolete design' Norsemen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noorduyn_Norseman for the wide fuselage & LOADING DOORS , to evacuate casualities form strips too rough for DC-3ès
§teel Tube & fabric makes an exceptionally tough short haul aircraft.

More trolling. Who says it was 'obsolete' apart from you? Introduced in 1935 and in production until 1959 seems to argue it wasn't obsolete in 1941. Somewhat different from the Fokker or Wilcher, right?

[phylo_roadking]

Plus they only produced 65 of the ju-252 plus 352 in total!
Its amusing when posters propose the 'wunderluftflotten' - when tough in quantity was the solution...not performance!

Who said it was a 'wunderluftflotten' - only that it was better than the Ju52...and of course quantity is the solution; But remember... both of their production careers were inhibited by outside factors, not because the aircraft were wholly or in any way unsatisfactory

The Heinkel 111 was a 'best last moment ' solution- if I remember correctly the freight conversions were plagued by a narrow fuselage, which is tough for stretcher care transport- & the Stalingrad hop was tough on the Heinkels cable landing gear..

IIRC the He111 could carry six stretchers...75% of the Ju52, so not ineffective at the job; also, don't forget that of the 488 aircraft lost during the Stalingrad airlift...266 were Ju52s. By far THE major factor causing the losses of aircraft during the airlift wasn't the weather, wasn't mechanical attrition, wasn't the quality of runways available...it was Soviet action. Pityomik was under constant surveillance, and shelling, as well as aircraft having to fly through AA fire and Soviet fighters strafing Pityomik.

[Piotr Mikołajski]

If there had been a need for a complicated high-performance transport plane with limited utility on rough fields to replace the Tante Ju, the Ju 90 or a derivative of it would have been it. There wasn't, really, and what there was could be covered by the SM.82 after 1943 (and if they had been desperate for it they could have produced the SM.82 under license before). That was pretty much the best large-volume transport plane of the war.

And in fact Luftwaffe had their own Savoia Staffel used for flights to North Africa where longer range aircraft were needed. Excellent article is in just released Luftwaffe im Focus #19.