In article , The
Enlightenment writes

"Dave Eadsforth" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Emmanuel.Gustin
writes
Dave Eadsforth wrote:


SNIP of previous detail


Also, do you happen to know if the Ar 234 (of any mark) was ever
used as
a recce machine over the UK prior to D-Day?

Leutnant Erich Somner made the world fist jet reconaisance flight on
August 2 1944. in the Arado 234 V7. The V7 indicating that it was
the 7th prootype. (V stands for Versuchs or esperimental) which was
hurridly adapted to obtain the photorecon of the situation at the
Cherbourg Penisuala. He had accomplished more in this mission than
the entire luftwaffe did in 2 months. It took 12 photographic
interpreters 2 days to produce an intitial report. This revealed that
the Allies had landed 1.5 million men.

Somner was a test pilot and responsible for having the Lofte 7
bombsight linked into the PDS autopilot.

On September 9th Somner conducted a reconaisance mission over London
and the Thames estury. On the outward bound leg he came upon a
reconaisance Mosquito intent on the same type of mission. As both
pilots aircraft were unarmed the pilots simply waved at each other.

Shades of WWI...

Somner despite being given orders to fly the reconaisance flight was
almost court martialed as unbeknownst to him flying a jet over Britain
was strictly forbiden Somners friend the Horst Gotz flew his Fiesler
Storch to see Goebells and this may have save hime from the court
martial. "Exellent Propaganda" was the comment of Goebells's
assisatant.


Early Arado 234A used a trolley to take of and skid to land. The
Ardo 234B bomber an undercariage and had a fueselage 1 inch wider to
accomodate the recessed bomb bay and compensate for fuel loss. The
recon Arado was swiched over to an normal undercarriage as the 10
minutes needed to retrieve the aircraft left it too vulnerable to
straffing.

Bombing raids on the UK would have been possible with a light bomb
load and heavier loads with the more developed versions.

The Arado had an accurate computing Bomb sight the Lotfe 7 (this was
regarded as more accurate than allied sights and it was once
recomended that it be copied for the RAF) it also apparently had the
EGON blind bombing system (similar to OBOE apparently) and a computing
dive bombing sight.

The few aircarft to enter service (about 70) were to busy with recon
tasks and attacking supply lines to overfly the UK I assume.
Nevertheless EGON was probably as accurate as oboe though it is hard
to imagine that even a Lotfe 7 would be accurate at the 10,000 meters
that would be used over the British isles.

Dive bombing had to be done with care as the aircraft lacked dive
breaks and in conditions of tension produced by AAA the pilot could
easily get in trouble with Mach. The Arado 234 was a pretty aircraft
because of its amazing smoothness.

It's designer Rudiger Kosin lofted the wing on a computer and rather
than rivet the wing on points of equal chord it was riveted at points
of equal curvature to produce a wrinkel free su Kosin also invented
the crescent wing (as in handley page victor) to overcome the Arado
234s mach limitation. He also invented the Krueger flap. (Krueger
was the wind tunnel technican who did the tests)

A lot of innovation for the period...most impressive.

Thanks very much for that rundown - it seems it was quite a machine.

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth