X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Focke-Achgelis


Focke-Achgelis

G.m.b.H. was a German helicopter company founded in 1937 by Henrich Focke and Gerd Achgelis.

Focke established the Focke-Achgelis company on 27 April 1937 in partnership with pilot Gerd Achgelis, and began development work at Delmenhorst in 1938.


342d Fighter Day Group

On the morning of 14 August 1942 two American fighter pilots, Lt. E. E. Shahan and Lt. J. D. Shaffer, intercepted and destroyed a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 about ten miles north of Reykjavík.

Baedeker Blitz

The German bombers suffered heavy losses for minimal damage inflicted, and the Axis' need for reinforcements in North Africa and Russian Front meant further operations were restricted to hit-and-run raids on coastal towns by a few Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bombers.

Bücker Flugzeugbau

As well as these, the company built designs from several other manufacturers under licence, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 44, the DFS 230, and components for the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Junkers Ju 87, and Henschel Hs 293.

Convoy HG 73

One day after the had left Gibraltar, a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft of KG 40 located the ships off Cape St. Vincent but was chased away by the Fulmar fighter from HMS Springbank.

Digital Combat Simulator

Future and upcoming modules include the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C Hornet, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, BAE Systems Hawk, North American F-86 Sabre, and Bell AH-1 Cobra.

The second "flying legends" title, simulating the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 D-9, with the same accuracy and detail as the P-51D Mustang module.

Drache

Fa 223 Drache ("Dragon"), a helicopter developed by Germany during World War II.

Egon Mayer

His final score stood at 102, when he was shot down by a P-47 Thunderbolt near Montmédy in Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-6 (Werknummer 470468—factory number) on 2 March 1944.

Ekkehard Tichy

Ekkehard Tichy was killed on 16 August 1944 after ramming a B-17 with his Fw 190 over Hannoversch Münden, Germany.

Erprobungskommando

Erprobungskommando 154 was formed in November 1943 in Langenhagen, to test the new Focke-Wulf Ta 154 night fighter.

Focke

Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG, a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft during World War II

Focke-Wulf

Albatros-Flugzeugwerke engineer and test pilot Kurt Tank became head of the technical department and started work on the Fw 44 Stieglitz (Goldfinch).

He and his closest collaborator, Barbara Goette, often met with technical director Professor Kurt Tank.

These flights are commemorated with a plaque in the Böttcherstraße street of Bremen.

Focke-Wulf A 38

All four A 38s were originally fitted with Siemens- or Gnome et Rhône-built Bristol Jupiter engines (although the BMW VI had been offered as an option), but in April 1933, all aircraft were refitted with Siemens Sh 20 powerplants.

Focke-Wulf Fw 187

The offensive armament was improved by replacing two of the 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine guns with 20 mm MG FF cannons, although these were never actually fitted.

One Fw 187 was sent to the aerial gunnery school in Værløse, Denmark in 1942.

Focke-Wulf Fw 190

Dozens of F-8s served as various testbeds for anti-tank armament, including the WGr.28 280 mm air-to-ground missile, probably based on the projectiles from the Nbw 41 heavy ground-barrage rocket system, and the 88 mm (3.46 in) Panzerschreck 2 rockets, Panzerblitz 1 and R4M rockets.

All were armed with six 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine guns — four synchronised weapons, two in the forward fuselage and one in each wing root, supplemented by a free-firing MG 17 in each wing, outboard of the propeller disc.

Otto Behrens, was based at the Luftwaffe's central Erprobungsstelle facility at Rechlin, but it was soon moved to Le Bourget.

Focke-Wulf Fw 47

It was a parasol-wing monoplane of largely conventional design, unusual only in the expansiveness of its wing area.

Focke-Wulf Ta 152

After attacking a train near Ludwigslust, the section split up into pairs; Wing Commander Brooker ordered the Tempests flown by Flying Officer S.J. Short and Warrant Officer Owen J. Mitchell to make their own way back to base.

An early Ta 152 combat occurred on 14 April 1945 when Oberfeldwebel Willi Reschke tried to intercept a De Havilland Mosquito over Stendal, but failed to catch up due to engine trouble.

In the end, available Ta 152s were pooled in a special Stabstaffel JG 301, first based at Alteno, then at Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg.

Focke-Wulf Ta 183

However, in the last few weeks of the war, it was decided that the Huckebein was really the best design and, at a meeting in Bad Eilsen, Tank was told to arrange mockups and to plan for full production.

The name Huckebein is a reference to a trouble-making raven (Hans Huckebein der Unglücksrabe) from an illustrated story by Wilhelm Busch.

Gerd Achgelis

From April 1932, he also worked as a flying instructor at the Technikum Weimar, and in 1933 became chief test pilot for the Focke-Wulf company in Bremen.

German submarine U-177

The U-boat successfully attacked the unescorted 4,195 ton Greek merchant ship Efthalia Mari east of Madagascar on 5 August, after spotting her using a Fa 330 Bachstelze rotor kite.

German submarine U-852

Laid down in Bremen and completed in June 1943, the boat was a long-range Type IX, with four bow and two stern torpedo tubes and a Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Bachstelze cable-towed lookout gyroglider.

Hans Jenisch

On 26 October 1940 the Empress of Britain was spotted by a German Focke-Wulf C 200 Condor long-range bomber, commanded by Oberleutnant Bernhard Jope.

Henrich Focke

Focke established the Focke-Achgelis company on 27 April 1937 in partnership with pilot Gerd Achgelis, and began development work at Delmenhorst in 1938.

Jagdgeschwader 26

Jagdgeschwader 26's first operations during the Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944 was conducted by Geschwaderkommodore Obstlt. Josef Priller, flying an Fw 190A-8 W.Nr.170346 Black 13, and his wingman from his airfield at Lille-Nord; an event that would be portrayed graphically in the book by Cornelius Ryan and the resultant film The Longest Day.

Jagdgeschwader 300

/ JG 300 became such a Sturmgruppe unit at this time and, equipped with the Focke-Wulf 190 A-8/R2 or R8 with two MK 108 30mm cannon, and two MG 151/20 20mm cannon, enjoyed initial success in downing bombers, but also suffered heavy losses to the massed fighter escorts.

Jagdgeschwader 54

A confirmed half-dozen aircraft, five Messerschmitt Bf 109s and one Focke-Wulf Fw 190A, that once served with JG 54 still exist in the 21st century, with one of these, the Fw 190 A-5 restored by the Flying Heritage Collection in Washington State USA (see below), currently being airworthy.

Josef Priller

He has become famous because of the publicity regarding his Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-8's single strafing pass attack on Sword Beach on 6 June 1944 (D-Day), accompanied by his wingman Heinz Wodarczyk.

Josef Wurmheller

On 23 September, he was wounded by bomb splinters while making an emergency landing in his Fw 190 A-6 during a bombing raid at Vannes-Meucon.

Lapland War

The first Finnish naval vessels Hämeenmaa, Uusimaa, VMV 15 and VMV 16 arrived with the sixth wave just in time to witness German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor bombers attacking the shipping at Tornio with Henschel Hs 293 glide bombs without results.

Mistel

A Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (Werk Nr. 733682), preserved in the Imperial War Museum in London, was the fighter part of a Mistel system that was captured by British forces in 1945.

Operation Jericho

As he turned for home, a Fw 190 fighter of JG 26 severed the tail of his Mosquito; the Mosquito's crash killed him and his navigator.

Organic Bondage

Stanton had written "The Young and the Free" for John Otway + Vietnamese Rose and would later provide the seminal Focke Wolfe for The Wimp and The Wild.

Platt-LePage XR-1

In its design, the XR-1 bore a strong resemblance to the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, a helicopter developed by Henrich Focke in Germany that, flown by Hanna Reitsch, had impressed Platt-LePage co-founder Wynn LePage during a tour of Europe.

SS El Grillo

While at anchor, the ship was attacked by three German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condors from the I.

SS Empire Dorado

A squadron of Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Kondors was despatched from Kiel to join Admiral Hipper and her battle group in the attack on Convoy HX 84.

Stan Boardman

A joke – about the Second World War reminiscences of a Polish pilot who flew in the Royal Air Force – made great play on the word "Fokker", referring not only to the German Focke-Wulf aeroplanes.

Uhu

Focke-Wulf Fw 189, a German tactical reconnaissance aircraft used in World War II.

William Jason Maxwell Borthwick

In the second half of 1942, working in the Home Fleet in the Navy's only operational radar-fitted Fleet carrier, Jason Borthwick in HMS Victorious was mastering the art of intercepting long-range Focke-Wulf Fw 200 aircraft.


see also