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Top Secret Luftwaffe '46 Project


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Herr Doktor Zakharis is no ordinary doctor. In fact, he did not even graduate from his first degree...

Zakharis Zander was an ordinary looking young man who spent his formative years in the most liberal era of 1920s Germany. ZZ (as his friends nickenamed him) was however not an ordinary youth. He did well enough at academic as well as sports, which was not remarkable by itself. He aslo had an incredible thirst for Eastern Philosophy, which was rather more unusual for someone born into a humble farming family in provincial Prussia.

In 1926, the 18 year old ZZ made a monumental decision that changed his life. He deferred his second year of his Philosophy degree course to travel to India. He reckoned that it would be more interesting to learn at first hand on site than to read and then debate the theories of stuffy professors at the University of Berlin. ZZ never returned to his degree course. in fatc , he did not set foot in Germany until the later part of 1944.

When was ZZ all these years? What did ZZ do all these years??

More importantly, for this GB at least, ...

All these fancy back stories... where is the BUILD part fo the GB? Is there something to show??

Er,,, I am still stuck at the Reaktor Motor Werks. I believe the jet exhaust will be sorted out in due course. I hope the seamless air intake can be made... Frankly, the seamless air intake are giving me a big headache. It seemed relatively easy when others did it. I followed the rather detailed instructions is the tutorial posted on line... I even used parts of a Phantom kit (the blue bits used for the menage a trois jet engine housing came from an ancient ESCI Phantom kit - they were the fuel tank halves).

May be I am not a good student... may be I need a tight dateline to perform optimally...

We shall see what the weekend brings.

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On with those pesky Reacktor Motors...

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I dissected a ball point pen.

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Added a 1/48 sidewinder seeker head and front fins, sprayed gun metal from a can and set up a red backdrop.

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Installed the facsimile in the position where a real jet exhaust assembly might have been.

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Taped the 1/48 Phantom fuel tank halves a la Sieggie's menage a trois.

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Checked the looks of the exhaust from outside.

I reckon, if it looked right, it is most likely going to be alright... So on with the troublesome seamless air intake.

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We have a breakthrough with those troublesome air intakes..

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Tried so many different material and sizes... in the end, we settled on plastic coated paper from a product catalogue.

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I thought I was smart to try to achieve a modulated colour/depth effect by using a black colour instead of plain vanilla white...

I forgot how difficult it was to achieve an even spray coat in a tube!

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Dry fitted and checked the looks of from outside. It is not perfect, but I think it will do.

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I guess I had destroyed the sand shark's slim profile forever. I reckon we could call it a pregnant shark now...

You could see two Grand Canyons... I would not even trouble you with photos of the bottom of the fuselage. The gaps at the bottom look more like the Rift Valleys in Africa.

Since the elfens are allegic to the colour blue, no guesses for who would have to do the donkey work of bridging the gap.

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So THAT's where the engines go!

Er, Col?

I think I would save the gap filling for the weekend...

Bet you are wondering about ZZ.

Zakharis Zander had a wonderful year in India, completely immersing himself in the local culture like a fish taking to water. He was particularly fascinated by Buddhism and Jainism philosophy, and made diligent efforts to learn the local language and the Eastern religious traditions. In 1927, as ZZ reluctantly made arrangements to leave the sub-continent and return to Germany, he met his spiritual master, of all places, in the maddeningly crowded concourse of Howrah train station in Calcutta two days before he was to board the steamer that would take him back to Hamburg via Liverpool. This chance meeting would change his life for ever.

ZZ did not step on German soil for the next 18 years! He simply disappeared from the known world until he reappeared in Germany in the late autumn of 1945.

Why was this so significant?

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THIS was what ZZ was immediately involved in upon his return to Europe. This top secret "brain hat" research and subsequent weapons applications (albeit in a relatively crude fashion) was at least 60 years ahead of anything the Russians and Americans tried.

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On with the cockpit werks then...

Thecockpitneedsattetionnext.jpg

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The original state of the cockpit of the sand shark.

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This is what we would like to fit into the space... very much a la He 219.

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Since this is a high altitude nightfighter, we shall start with installing the insulation, ja?

Then we figure out the fittings for:

1) the standard pilot station;

2) the sensor/weapons kontroller station.

I think we shall be environmentally friendly and recycle the donor kit's A-10 cockpit. I have also recycled Revell's F-16 cockpit for the kontroller station. The yellow ejection seats came from an Italeri EH-101 Cormorant.

Let us ask Doktor ZZ what he needs besides a spacious workstation and a comfy chair...

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Buenos dias! Senor Loco checking in...

Just got back from a rather interesting wedding in Southern Thailand over the weekend.

I am not working today, so I may be able to pick up from where I left off last week... if the jet lag does not catch up first...

ZZ left me a sketch..

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The good doktor wanted one of these!

The first commercially made electronic televisions with cathode ray tubes were manufactured by Telefunken in 1934. CRT display technology advanced by leaps and bounds as the military demand replaced consumer demand. By late 1941, the Luftwaffe has started fitting rudimentary CRT display to their first nightfighters equipped with airborne radar interception sets.

We shall see what the wonder boys at Telefunken would come up with.

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you sound like you may have had too much fun at the wedding....

zoou have me in total vonderment as to vere dis is going...

Though I vonder if Heir Dokter has bitten offen too muchen!!!

Ven are ve going too zee da vinished product!

opps en, too muchen tequila........ :beer:

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you sound like you may have had too much fun at the wedding....

opps en, too muchen tequila........ :beer:

Ha Ha keine tequila....

Zu viel bier :beer: und sonnenschein am strand :lol:

It was a wonderfully organised wedding, we were even treated to fireworks on a private beach!

Now, shot down to earth... staring at the gap and the werks that even the elfens refused to touch...

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... staring at the gap and the werks that even the elfens refused to touch...

Got totally fed up with the endless puttying and sanding... so I decided the sand shark could use some armour plating...

Quite why a high altitude "stealth-ish' nightfighter that is pretty much immune to allied counter night fighters needs to be burdened further with extra dead weight, I don't know yet ... let me think... when I am more attuned to the task at hand, I'll tell you.

In the meantime, ve are progressing slowly on to the next stage... sensor fittings...

Too muchen werk left to do, and too few days/hours left...

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are you sure nothing else happened at the wedding............. :P

if you add enough "plating" you'll have a flying box! :rofl:

who needs sleep :sleeping: , a few all-nighters and it'll be done....or xmas! :frantic:

stoke up the coffee pot and get to it!

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No morning drip feed today.

Werk was done last night (honest) but I did not manage to take photos.

The armour plating idea worked out well, though there is still much puttying and sanding left to do. Briefly toyed with the idea of area ruling for the menage a trois jet pods. A little known historical fact was the German, Doktor Otto Frenzl, actually discovered area rule in 1943-44 when conducting transonic wind tunnel testing at Junkers. I chickened out in the end at the mere thought of more puttying and sanding. So no Jessica Rabbit in a mottled night dress I am afraid.

Will finish off with the polishing job tonight and probably get on with the sensor and weapons fit.

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Ah, Jessica Rabbit... She would great in a mottled dress! A schon Aryan Madchen in a RLM 76 dress with 81/82 mottle... Divine!

I digress, be good to see how the werk has proceeded, Herr Doktor.

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Fellow Herr Doktors, may I present my progress report on the armour plated pregnant shark.

PregnantSharkPlanView_zps4b1f5082.jpgPregnantSharkPlanView2_zpsae97f3b8.jpg

The close up shows much werk remains to be done to fill the gap.

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You can clearly see where the armour plating went - to fair the jet exhaust.

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Here is a view from the bottom.

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The close up clear shows the advantage of armour plating the bottom of the sand shark.

I took the liberty to address the main landing gear well at the same time.

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You can see the inside of the gear well is still unfinished. We will have to figure out how to mount the main undercarriage in that space already full of jet engine, fuel feed and other bits and bob. To squeeze every major system into the slim fuselage ought to be challenging...

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Now, a primer coat should take care of the shabby appearance, we will polish the surface and get busy with wind tunnel testing over the weekend.

In the meantime, Doktor ZZ is werking on the weapons and sensor systems integration with his new sidekick TT. We hope to report on that later in the day.

Watch this space...

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ZZ and TT have been busy with the radar system and the secondary sensor suite for the last year or so. Since most of these involve ground breaking architectural concepts and leading edge radar and other related technology, we prefer to keep that under wraps for the time being. I hope for your kind understanding.

Well... actually this cloak and dagger stuff was due to a more random and mundane situation of photo bucket acting up, so I could not load or access my photos. I guess we'll have to keep this wrapped up for now.

On the weapons front, we have firmed up the offensive weapons system.

The fixed weapon is a scaled down gatling cannon with 3 barrels reverse engineered from the gaint 7 barrelled GAU-8 Avenger recovered from the sand shark in Kuwait/Iraq.

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Can you see the family resemblance?

After extensive testing, we decided to lengthen the barrels to achieve a higher muzzle velocity.

Luftwaffe's test personal assessing foreign captured weaponry literally fell of their chairs when they first test fired the GAU-8. The Wehrmacht was quickly informed and Heer got involved as well. Apparently, the depleted uranium armour piercing rounds penetrated even the formidable Tiger heavy tank!

(Un)fortunately, the Nazis were not able to replicate the 7 barrel construction of the GAU-8 even though the gatling gun concept was already well understood. So, the resultant reversed engineered 3 barrel gatling cannon could only achieve about 40% of the rate of fire of the GAU-8. Nevertheless, 1,500 rounds per minute is significantly more than anything the Luftwaffe fielded or had in development. More significantly, the flatter trajectory and the increased effective range in excess of 1 km offers a significant improvement over even the accurate and powerful Mk 101 30mm bordkanone.

We shall return later with the other offensive weapons later in the day if I could access photo bucket.

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Still no luck with photo bucket. It would not let me log in...

I shall leave you with a teaser I stashed away earlier in my notebook.

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I present the third component of Luftwaffe's Projekt Amerika. Equipped with inflight refuelling apparatus, to escort Mottlemaster's Heinkel He177-A6 armed with Wotan nuclear warheaded V1 across the Atlantic. While this Heinkel Zerstörer may not be as agile as pabbi's nibble little Ta-183 Huckebein, it carries Luftwaffe's latest all weather radar and fire control system, and packs a significantly heavier punch as well.

What if... I guess we'd never know...

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Vielen dank, Herr Doktor, your update is most pleasing. May I suggest using the Picasa picture hosting, it is unlike the Amerikaner Photobucket, it is not always saying 'Nein! Access verboten!'

A shame the reverse engineering could not result in the 7 barrels, but this wunderkanone should strike terror into the allied Panzermen.

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it's coming along nicely, can't wait to see the finished beastie!!

though I think I know who ill be a little bit busier than Santa.... :frantic:

I wish we had more time for this build (prob help if I started earlier) would have loved to have started another "project", got some good ideas.

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Vielen Dank! My fellow Herr Doktors.

The wunderkanone was configured as a 3 barrelled affair simply because of heavy weight and the length of the monstrous barrels. In any case, the Luftwaffe is already wetting its collective pants with the prospect of 1,500 round per minute.

Fear not Herr Doktor Parabat, I have another trick shot up my sleeves.

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These are 30mm gun barrels for the Schräge Musik, an system of upward-firing autocannons mounted on late generation Luftwaffe nightfighters. The idea was to allow the nightfighter to sneak in below (and behind) an unsuspecting Lancaster bomber (most British bombers lack a ventral gun turret or had it removed to reduce drag) and shoot the clieless bomber out of the sky. The first victory attributed to this installation occurred in May 1943. The Schrage Musik proved highly effective and Bomber Command could not really come up with an effective countermeasure.

I am not sure I will actually use this Quickboost set since I have not resorted to AM accessories yet. Might use the same hypodermic syringe needles for the barrels instead.

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Herr Doktor trickyrich, you are spot on about some body being busier than Santa. Ve however regret to report that the preliminary wind tunnel testing results for the pregnant sand shark had been rather disappointing.

Although all external surfaces have been polished smooth with the upmost care, the airframe exhibited rather troubling drag near transonic speed. Even with two very powerful HeS021 engines, it was a struggle against this unexpected drag. The estimated maximum airspeed (in clean configuration) was a disappointing 780-800km/h.

With the anticipated operational add-on protrusions as the aircraft matures in Luftwaffe service, it is quite likely the late operational versions would have difficulty running away from the new British and American jets entering service, let alone catching the next generation of jet propelled bombers expected in the next few years. This naturally threw a huge spanner into the idea of Luftwaffe's ultimate nachtjäger.

So, Herr Doktors Sieggie and Tizzie went back to school to consult Herr Doktor Theodor Zobel at Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung (German Academy of Aeronautics Research). Herr Doktor Theodor is the author of the ground breaking research paper "fundamentally new ways to increase performance of high speed aircraft" published only last year.

Sieggie being the "ever creative liberal minded sort" (I dare say a rather decadent libertine) dreamt of putting Der Führer's mistress in corset. It must be the Christmas season, the traditional period for men to buy their women lingerie...

Hence, Projekt EVA ("Extra Va-va-voom Antreiban") was born. And, our intrepid duo tried to put the pregnant sand shark on a crash diet and stuff her into a slimming corset.

The time period is obviously quite different...

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But, Herr Doktor Parabat, your desire shall be fulfilled... I

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I present a sneak preview of our curvilicious damsel fly emerging from a weekend at the spa. She will be dressed in mottle at a later time...

The end result of Projekt EVA will be put through wind tunnel testing next week. The initial mathematical projection is highly promising. Ve expect a revised maximum airspeed increased in the magnitude of at least 60-80km/h with the identical engine configuration.

Ve plan to consult another pioneering aerodynamicist in the high transonic regime. Herr Doktor Dietrich Küchemann has been a prominent member of the research team at Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung aiming to break the sound barrier since the late 1930s.

For those of you who have done your homework, you would have known Herr Doktor Dietrich Küchemann "defected" in 1947 and joined Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE). Küchemann devoted his life time to studying air flow around bodies at supersonic speeds. He made many important discoveries and was made CBE for his contributions to aerodynamics. For the general public however, Küchemann was best known for his later work on the Anglo French Supersonic Concorde.

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Something fishy is definitely going on... Bunnies just seem to be popping up out of the blue a little too often for the Christmas season ... Someone must have played a prank on the Bunnies and advanced Easter Bunnies' time clock by a good 3-4 months.

First, Herr Doktor Parabat got his wish. Jessica Rabbit will be making an guest appearance soon in a skimpy mottled nightie. Actually, I could not get Jessie's wasp waisted silhouette out of my mind either. Could you?

Then, this morning, Herr Doktor Dietrich Küchemann at Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung just smiled like a Chesire Cat and said "make sure you feed you lovely rabbit plenty of carrots". The good Doktor then handed Sieggie and Tizzie his yet unpublished research paper on transonic airflow over the wings.

Suddenly, this Christmas is starting to feel like...

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For those of you who have read up on Herr Doktor Dietrich Küchemann biography after last night's update, you would have heard of the "Küchemann Carrots"!

The "Küchemann Carrots" are sonic anti-shock bodies (resembling carrots naturally) that are applied to the trailing edge of the wings to modulate the airflow as the aircraft approaches transonic speed. The carrots achieve an optimal area rule to reduce transonic wave drag without the exaggerated Jessie waisting.

In fact, the Soviets and the Amerikaners nickedHerr Doktor Dietrich's carrots after the war.

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The Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bomber

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as well as Convair 990 Coronado jet airliner are well known examples incorporating copy-cat version of "Küchemann Carrots".

Enough digression, back to real time in What-if-land...

We started with this.

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Added the height finding radar array.

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Then, ve werked out tweaks according to Herr Doktor Dietrich's cryptic clue.

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You can clearly see the big fat carrot as an extension to the existing fairing mid-span. We have also incorporated mini-carrots further out.

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Our intrepid Herr Doktors are so thrilled with the improved prospect of significant performance boost from these aerodynamic refinements that they pestered Herr Doktor Ernst until he approved putting the revised fuselage and wings through wind tunnel testing over Christmas just to get rid of the two eager beaver youngsters. He would rather spend his Christmas Eve in front of a roaring fire instead of freezing his butt off in the wind tunnel lab. He is just too old to do this kind of thing.

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