Small Scale Military Headquarters

Close guess but no cigar! The bottoms were painted that way so that AA gunners on the ground would not mistake them for the enemy. The candy cane paint scheme denotes a 190 in the role of "airfield defender" and would provide protection as 262 jets would take-off anf land which is the moment when most mustang pilots would rack up 262 victories! so the instructions were simple to the gunners. Don't shoot red planes or noisy jets.

I have a 'dumb' question about that plane,There are 2 holes on the front of each wing,one hole has a rod like fixture that sticks out through the hole,what is it?
It's a terrific looking plane though,I am building up a collection of 21st cent planes to display at our tank club events in NZ for museum visitors to look at.
With fathers day,wedding anniversary,birthday and christmas I can 'safely'
aquire 4 planes a year hehe.

The FW-190D9 was armed with two 20mm cannon and 2 13.5mm machineguns, per some specifications I have for the plane provided by the USAF Museum guidebook. The "rod like" fixtures at the base of each wing on the XD version are the aircraft's 20mm cannon. You can see the bulge for the cannon further back on the wing. The guns in the nose are the 13.5mm machine guns.

Now here's a riddle - Look caregully at the picture of the XD FW-190D9 on the 21st website or BCA's website. Look carefully on the underside of your plane in the section between the little pilot-step and the tail wheel. Seeing all that, can you guess what the round loop is on the control stick in the cockpit?

Other board members who know the answer, please let tankduel or any others who don't know try to guess!!

I know!! It's aaaaaaaaaa..............

Hehe... I know as well.

This is the official text on the back of the Fw-190's box...

When the Focke-WuIf 190 first entered service in 1941 Kurt Tank’s brilliant design was clearly superior in almost every respect to the Allies top fighter, the Spitfire Mk. V. The British responded by rushing the much improved Spitfire Mk. IX into production, which restored the balance of power in air to air combat.

The Fw-190A series was powered by the BMW-801 radial engine. This reliable motor gave it excellent power and speed at low and medium levels. The tide of the war began turning, and the American B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers started a campaign of daylight bombing over Germany at high altitudes. The Achilles heel of the Fw-190A was its drop off in performance over 20,000 feet, due to the lack of supercharging of the BMW 801 engine.

Kurt Tank responded by starting development on an inline engined version of the Fw-190, powered by the Junkers Jumo 213 liquid cooled engine, which could produce over 2200 horsepower for short periods with Methanol/Water boosting. While its high altitude performance was still not what they had been hoping for, it was a superb aircraft overall, and production commenced immediately. The first long nosed “Doras”, so named for the D subtype designation, began entering service in late 1944.

The Fw-190D-9 was the most common of the D models produced, and differed from the A series aircraft with its lengthened nose and an extended rear fuselage to balance it out. It had a top speed of 426 mph and could reach altitudes of 39,000 ft. The Dora had a length of 30’ and a wingspan of 34’ 8”, and carried an armament of two 13mm machine guns in the cowling and two 20mm cannons in the wing, making it a formidable adversary. The D-9 equipped many fighter squadrons and served admirably until the last days of the War in Europe.

Thanks for the answer.That's a good brain teaser! How about it retracts the step?

Not quite...

Any further guesses before I reveal the answer? It may be unexpected for some, as it was for myself, when I learned it!

The Badcat photo shows something long dangling(red and silver) , from the fuselage,am I getting warm?

Eh.....Nope!

I'm not a plane guy so this is a REAL guess: Was it for the methanol "boost" kind of like after-burners?

Yes, sort of digger. It was injected into the engine to give a temporary increase in horse power and thus speed and performance. It was of fairly limited duration as only so much methanol could be carried and it was consumed quickly.

It was generally saved for emergencies during combat. It works by cooling the temperature of combustion, which allows more boost to be run (ie you can open the throttle more without the engine overheating).

I'll give the answer to the loop-on-the-control-stick riddle now before we get totally off track

The loop is actually the loop antenna, which can actually be made out on this model used for the S2 FW-190D9 (look under the cheveron). See link:

http://store1.yimg.com/I/badcattoys_1821_3807885

There was an interesting post on the old board (or perhaps it was this one) when someone discovered that the pieces for the loop antenna and the controlstick were molded together, due to their being cast together in the production process. With a little creativity, the pieces can be seperated and the antenna glues into a slot on a little bulge on the underside of the the fuselage. So there's some other interesting facts about your XD FW-190.

I know this is all old news, but its fun to get the newer members guessing about their toys !

Thanks TMAN :,but what is the thing dangling down,it's on the above photo too.

Here's the original link to the loop antenna thread:

viewtopic.php?t=105

Time flys by when you think we discussed this on GPXD, hehehehehe......

Check out the picture here of the antenna installed. It should have more of the stem removed before gluing in place:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/127 ... 1422EHIXXu

-Ski

My loop antenna was in the correct place on my plane,no wonder I could not work out the riddle,my production line worker was on the ball!

My loop ant was right on the red belly but was not on the Gerhard one I glued a rubber o ring on instead.
Kurt

I got lucky as well! I heard about this at first and thought... okay, maybe it's the long antenna that's near where the foot step is in the photos.

P51,you just answered my question,thanks.