FGP 227

Last updated
FGP 227
RoleResearch Flying boat
National origin Germany
ManufacturerFGP (Czech)
First flightSeptember 1944 [1]
StatusPrototype
Number built1 [1]

The FGP 227 was a scale flying model of the Blohm & Voss BV 238 flying boat, built to provide data for the development of the BV 238. [1]

Blohm & Voss BV 238 1944 military flying boat by Blohm & Voss

The Blohm & Voss BV 238 was a German flying boat built during World War II. It was the heaviest aircraft ever built when it first flew in 1944, and was the largest aircraft produced by any of the Axis powers during World War II.

Flying boat Aircraft equipped with a boat hull for operation from water

A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water, that usually has no type of landing gear to allow operation on land. It differs from a floatplane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage. Flying boats were some of the largest aircraft of the first half of the 20th century, exceeded in size only by bombers developed during World War II. Their advantage lay in using water instead of expensive land-based runways, making them the basis for international airlines in the interwar period. They were also commonly used for maritime patrol and air-sea rescue.

Contents

Design and development

The proposed Blohm & Voss BV 238 flying boat was to have an advanced hull design which had never been tried before. The Czech Flugtechnische Fertigungsgemeinschaft Prag (FGP) was engaged to build a quarter-scale test aircraft. [2]

The FGP 227 was a faithful, approximately quarter-scale model of the proposed design, having a long, narrow hull with a high-mounted wing and conventional tail. The pilot sat in a front cockpit and the flight test observer in another one aft of the wing. Power was supplied by six 15.7 kW (21 hp) ILO F 12/400 air-cooled two-stroke engines driving three bladed propellers, mounted along the wings. [1]

The model was completed early in 1944, registered as BQ+UZ and fitted with a temporary wheeled undercarriage of ten small wheels fitted with low-pressure tyres.

Operational history

Intended to allow flight tests to commence from the manufacturers airfield, the FGP 227 refused to take-off from the grass airfield. The aircraft was dismantled and transported to Erprobungsstelle See, Travemünde, (E-Stelle - flying boat testing station). [3] During transport French prisoners of war loading the wing onto flat-bed trucks allowed it to fall from a crane causing damage which was not repaired until September 1944. [1]

The Priwall Peninsula is a spit located across from the town of Travemünde at the Trave River estuary, on Germany's Baltic Sea coast. Since 1226 it has been administratively part of Travemünde, itself controlled by Lübeck.

Travemünde seaport and borough of Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

Travemünde is a borough of Lübeck, Germany, located at the mouth of the river Trave in Lübeck Bay. It began life as a fortress built by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, and the Danes subsequently strengthened it. It became a town in 1317 and in 1329 passed into the possession of the free city of Lübeck, to which it has since belonged. Its fortifications were demolished in 1807.

Flight tests commenced in September 1944 as soon as the repairs were completed, but all six engines stopped due to fuel starvation soon after take-off, resulting in a heavy landing on the water. The FGP 227 was again repaired after which the aircraft flew several more times. By this time construction and testing of the BV 238 had started, so no useful data was gleaned from the programme. [1]

Specifications (FGP 227)

Data from Green [1]

General characteristics

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Green (2010)
  2. ↑ Hans Amtmann, "Blohm und Voss Remembered", Part I, Aeroplane Monthly, February 1998, pp.22-27.
  3. ↑ "Abandoned" (2012)

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References

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