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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1393.PDF
JULY 2ND, 1942 [EIR CHARACTERISTICS "* A the Junkers Ju 88 did not go into production until early in 1939, it was not necessary even to pretend that it had been designed as anything but a war machine. Its immediate predecessor, the Ju 87, had also been avowedly a fighting machine, whereas the Ju 86, like the Heinkel 111 and others up to 1935-36, had all come into being ostensibly as civil airliners, though designed with a definite vew to ready conversion into military aircraft. Great Britain, on the other hand, with a futile sincerity in her policy of international disarmament, designed her civil aircraft with the sole object of'peaceful passenger- and freight-carrying, such machines as the Sunderland being adapted under the stress of urgency. The J u 88 is probably the most aggressive-looking fight ing machine that Germany possesses, and it is certainly one of the most useful. It went into production early in 1939 (soon after production was stopped on the Ju 86), and it jumped right into aviation's limelight by almost immediately setting up an international record in the hands of Ernst Siebert and Kurt Heintz. With a load of 4,400 lb. it flew the 620 miles from its native Dessau to the Zugspitz Mountains and back at an average speed ' of 320 m.p.h. This was, of course, a specially prepared machine, and a few weeks later a similar model, carrying the same load, clocked 311 m.p.h. over a distance of 1,240 miles. Designed originally as a high-performance bomber, it was later modified into the dive-bomber we now know, a process which entailed some strengthening of the struc ture and the addition of dive-brakes to the wings. The armament was also increased, and although primarily a replacement type for the "Stuka," the Ju 88 can be, and is, used for normal bombing as well as for dive- bombing. It has been the chief type used for attacks on Channel shipping, and took an appreciable share in the raids on London. An interesting refinement on the latest '' A-6'' model is an automatic device for pulling out of a bomb-dive and closing the dive-brakes at the right moment in relation to the release of the bombs. The complete sequence is operated by pressing one button. The all-metal monocoque fuselage crowds the crew of four into the small space of the "snake's head"; the two-spar wings are hinged along the entire trailing-edge, the outer portions acting as ailerons and the inner ones as landing-flaps. Like the fuselage, the wings are stressed- skin covered and flush-riveted. The tail assembly is also a metal structure with flush riveted stressed skin on the fixed areas, but has fabric-covered fin and rudder. The two Jumo 211 engines each give 1,200 h.p. and, although they are 12-cylinder in-line units, their circular nose radiators give the appearance of radial installations. The top speed (without external bombs) is 281 m.p.h. at 16,oooft., cruising speed 264 m.p.h., and diving speed with brakes is up to 340 m.p.h. and over 400 m.p.h. without them. Service ceiling is 29,800ft., cruising range 1,310 miles, and bomb-load 2,500 lb. Six machine guns form the defensive armament; one in the nose, four in the rear cockpit, and one rearward-firing gun in the offset gondola beneath the fuselage.
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