Footage of real pre-war and WW2 German combat helicopters.

[Dave_Jackson]

The real German WW2 Helicopter (http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=6SrUyNG4fYA)



"Footage of real pre-war and WW2 German combat helicopters, technically superior to the Bell Helicopter in the Where eagles dare film.
The first seen is the FW-61 flying in 1937, then the bomb carrying, machine gun equipped medi-vac, artillery transporting Fa-223 "Drache".
With a ceiling of over 22,000ft it was suitable for high altitude mountain missions.
Able to carry up to 16 combat troops on external benches and 4 crew inside, it could also carry up to 1.5 tons by cable externally.
The Drache was also the first helicopter to cross the English Channel.

Also featured is the Flettner synchropter Hubschrauber FL 265 and the production version of the FL-282 "Kolibri" which was used for submarine spotting in the Mediterranean, Baltic and Adriatic, and observation on the eastern front.
The Flettner was easier to fly than a typical modern helicopter and could be flown hands off with no hands on the controls. It was highly aerobatic, stable and fast and because of the intermeshing rotors, could carry a greater load than a conventional heli of the same size.
By varying the collective pitch relative to either set or rotors, yaw is effected in the same way a tail rotor controls yaw in a conventional chopper. The large rudder on the Flettner was mainly an aid in forward high speed stability and made the craft almost effortless to fly for novice pilots, particularly in a time period when experienced pilots were at a premium.
Because it had no tail rotor, is was less prone to mechanical failure and loss of control."

[Avi8tor]

made the craft almost effortless to fly for novice pilots, particularly in a time period when experienced pilots were at a premium There were ANY experienced pilots on those things?? :}

Great post, I had NO idea that rotorwing flight was so advanced in germany. Sad all that technology ended up in soviet hands after the war.

[paco]

It was a long time ago since I saw it, but wasn't the one in Where Eagles Dare a Bell 47 with sticky stuff all over the windscreen? It wouldn't be hard to be technically superior, as it wasn't invented then! :)

I seem to remember it was a female pilot who flew something around inside a building - Hannah somebody?

Good footage, though.

phil

[Dave_Jackson]

Avi8torSad all that technology ended up in soviet hands after the war.Actually, the only flyable Flettner 282 ended up in the US.

Prewitt Aircraft Company evaluated and conducted twenty hours of flight-testing on one of the two remaining Flettner-282s. A number of comprehensive reports were created. "The performance of the helicopter was found to be very high, ...". Prewitt recommended "That all eligible and interested helicopter organizations be permitted to have their pilots fly this helicopter."

I have no knowledge of any organization taking Prewitt up on their offer.

Dave

[spinwing]

Mmmmm....

I believe the lady in question was Hannah Reisch ... who was also involved in test flying the manned version of the V1 "dooddlebug"!

:E

[rotornut]

I believe the lady in question was Hannah Reisch(correct) who flew it in the Berliner Sportpalast, I think.

[chuks]

A very famous female test pilot and a dedicated admirer of Nazi aims (her family came from Silesia, which they wanted to see re-united with Greater Germany), she flew the helicopter inside the "Deutschlandhalle" during an exhibition. The spectators were not as enthusiastic as hoped because they got a good dusting-down from the rotorwash plus they had to open all the windows and run the ventilation high... in February 1938.

Reitsch was a very naive admirer of Hitler who regretted being ordered out of Berlin right at the end rather than being allowed to die with her beloved leader. She was the last person to fly out of the besieged city, using a Fiesler "Storch" operated from an improvised strip in the "Tiergarten".

The Focke-Wulf helicopter was strictly experimental. In fact, I don't think the Luftwaffe used any operational helos.

I believe that in later life Hannah was okay with having been a big Hitler fan; it was just that she had been seen in public flying a helicopter that caused her some understandable embarrassment. She tried to excuse this by saying that when she committed rotary-wing flight she "was only following orders."

Post-war she spent a year and-a-half being interrogated, mainly about her experiences of Hitler in his Berlin bunker. Since she had not belonged to either the Nazi party or to the BDM, its women's auxiliary, she was absolved of guilt and released. In later life she resumed the one true path of fixed-wing aviation, flying gliders.

[tottigol]

The FW-61 that Hanna Reitsch flew in the Berlin Deutschalle was a configuration demonstator based on the fuselage of the FW-44 Stieglitz biplane trainer.

Heinrich Focke went on to develop the FA-223 Drache, a much larger and operationally capable design; powered by a BMW 323 engine, the Fa-223 was employed operationally towards the end of the war to transport material for mountain troops in the Alps.
Interesting how early designss from America and the Russkies (the McDonnell Whirlybird and the Bratukin(?) designs) used the same design characteristics.
I believe the Fa-223 design was copied by the Czechs and used operationally under an Avia number

[Evalu8ter]

The Germans were very forward thinking with RW employment. they used the Drache on the Eastern front during the closing stages of the war as well as the Alps.

They were also tactically aware; they flew a number of trials with FL282 et al against FW190s and ME109s. The results are still being taught today; if you stay at 500ft you are a sitting duck against a FW as they can skyline you. However, get in the weeds and don't fly over anything daft and the FW have a devils job finding you and if they did, the FL282 would out-turn the fighters all day at low level. They also looked at vulnerability to ground fire, and developed tactics to help.

One can only hypothesize if the Germans had a had a couple of hundred Draches to conduct resupply at Stalingrad, delivering supplies/reinforcements direct to the front line rather than relying on Ju52s and converted bombers that required hard to defend airstrips. The course of the war might have been affected.

I believe that a Drache was evaluated in the UK briefly after the war. It was lost when, against the German groundcrew's advice, insufficient re-torquing of a vital component led to it being written off.

[arismount]

>>The Flettner...varying the collective pitch relative to either set or rotors, yaw is effected in the same way a tail rotor controls yaw in a conventional chopper.<<

Don't see how this would work. Usually in helos w/two main rotors, i.e., tandems, intermeshing, or side-by-side, yaw control is provided by opposite cyclic inputs, i.e., cyclic tilt left MR disc forward & right MR disc backward to accomplish right yawing motion, & vice-versa. Differential collective inputs to the two discs would result in a rolling motion, not yaw. Comments?

[chuks]

I never read anything before about this use of helos by the Luftwaffe! Was that because they were so far ahead of us? Good thing they didn't think of developing the "airmobile" concept, eh?

I had read about the very limited use of some Sikorskis by the U.S. military in the WWII period and, of course, those flights in the "Deutschlandhalle" in 1938 but I never knew that the Germans used this "Drache" operationally.

I think that "Drache" means "dragon" but more commonly just "kite," by the way.

[Dave_Jackson]

arismount,


Flettner's FL-282;
Uses differential torques (differential collective pitch change) and rudder. Only the rudder could give steering during autorotation.

Kaman's H-43 Huskie (http://www.unicopter.com/0742.html#Yaw)

Kaman's K-MAX (http://www.unicopter.com/0473.html#Yaw_Control)

Kellett's XR-8 (http://www.unicopter.com/0896.html#Yaw)

DeGraw's Hummingbird (http://www.unicopter.com/0475.html#Yaw)

_________________

In 1939, Flettner's Fl-265 intermeshing helicopter was the first helicopter to demonstrate transition into autorotation and then back into powered flight. [Source ~ PHA p.18]

I wonder why Flettner did not implement pedal reversal for autorotation? Perhaps, similar to their successful test bed work with three-blade rotors - it was not a consideration for military use.

Dave

[IFMU]

Great video Dave, thanks for posting.

-- IFMU