| Arado E.500 | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Type | Heavy fighter |
| National origin | German Reich (Nazi period) Deutsches Reich |
| Manufacturer | Arado Flugzeugwerke |
| Number built | Not produced |
| History | |
| Manufactured | – |
| Introduction date | – |
| First flight | – |
The Arado E.500 was an aircraft designed by Arado Flugzeugwerke in 1936 as a heavy fighter and ground attack aircraft. Although a full-scale mockup was produced, no units were ever produced.
The Arado E.500 was a four-man heavy fighter and ground attack fighter that was designed by prominent aircraft designer Walter Blume and Kurt Bornemann. [1] It was originally designed in 1935 and development continued as far as the construction of a full-scale mockup, but never entered mass-scale production. [1]
The design called for a twin boom design, with each of the booms housing a Daimler-Benz DB 600 series liquid-cooled piston engine as well as the rear-facing retractable main landing gear wheels and a tail surface mounted on the outboard section. [1] The short center-mounted fuselage housed four crew members, including a pilot, copilot/gunner/observer, and two turret gunners. [2] It had two gun turrets, one on the dorsal surface and one on the ventral surface, each with a pair of 20 mm Rheinmetall-Borsig 202 cannons. [1] Each of the turrets had a complete 360-degree range of motion, and could aim the guns from horizontal to a full vertical position. [1] The bottom turret was operated by a gunner lying prone in an under-fuselage trough and using a periscope to aim. [2] A third gunner operated fixed forward-facing guns in the nose of the aircraft. [1] Fuel tanks were located in the rear of the fuselage and at least one variant was designed with an internal bomb bay with a capacity of two 250kg bombs. [1]
Arado developed a 1:1 mock-up; however, it did not find the interest of the Technical Office of the Ministry of Aviation. The project was subsequently discontinued. [3]
General characteristics
PerformanceArmament