Focke Wulf Fw190 A8/M D-FMFW

Matthias Dorst · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:44 pm

Lets talk about those Focke Wulf´s .....

The Flugwerk-company developped in the nintees 98% copies of the famous Focke Wulf Fw190. 16 Projects were finished an delivered to private investors.

One of those projects was bought in the year 2005 by Jerry Yagen/"Fighter Factory". Jerry Yagen gave order to MeierMotors to assemle the kit in flyable condition. At that time, the kit was delivered to the old MeierMotors shop on Freiburg airport (EDTF). It was impossible to start the project immediately, to many questions, to many technical problems. In the year 2006 Jerry Yagen visited the shop to check and discuss the project. Meanwhile Achim & Elmar has put the project together and presented Jerry the fighter with working maingear. suprise suprise ! Jerry gave the "go" and gave order to check "each screw" and build up the plane step by step. One of the MeierMotors milestones.

Achim and Elmar thought about the project, and they decided to make some corrections and changes..... will say many corrections and a lot of new solutions. Jerry Yagen gave them a generous budget and offers all help and he can give to that project to receive the optimum. What a deal and big confidence, big friendship.

The change potenziells were defined

new engine- and oilcooling system
maingear
breaksystem
new oilsystem, oiltank
propeller

These things were only the cornerstones and the beginning of extensive optimize efforts. The company FlightTest was engaged to "escort" the efforts on that plane. FlightTest is the company of Dieter Thomas, famous testpilot of the former Dornier works. Dieter accompanied the brothers through the whole project, managed the paperwork and registration efforts. Thanks for that Dieter ! With Dieter, the German Luftfahrbundesamt (in the US the FAA is the same thing) attended the project also over the whole time. Lot of discussions and solutions and all involved persons worked together in a perfect manner, perfect teamplay.

some pictures ... 2007 ... one of my first contacts to MeierMotors

TimAPNY · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:13 pm

I love the idea of these hitting the airshow circuit in a few years. It will be a great addition to the warbird movement. Please keep us updated with and and all news that you can.

Tim

Matthias Dorst · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:31 pm

Late in 2007 Juergen Meier joined the team. Juergen is not a family member

he has only the same name. Jueregn worked formally at the Flugwerk Company and attended the Flugwerk customers, also he was involved in the production of those kits. In fact he knows every single screw and rivet at this ship. At this second Jueregn was and is responsible for those Flugwerk planes at the MeierMotors shop. And I tell you, the WkNr002 is his personal baby and meanwhile a big friend of the Meier-brothers and, glad I am, a friend of mine. From an empolyee to deep friendship, these are also warbirdstories.

They choose the Asch82T as powerhouse. This Asch is a 14cylinder radialengine, 42 litres cubic capacity. Its a transporter engine and was used in the well known Iljushin 14 with a 4-blade-propeller. The engine has about 1.900 hp. This engine was adapted at the fuselage. It was planned by Flugwerk to use this engine with a three-bladed-propeller. The propellerhub was constructed by Flugwerk, the blades were delivered from MT-propellers. Additional to this equipment the Meier-brothers bought an original matching Il-14 4-blader and gave this propeller to Hoffmann-propellers for ovehauling. The prop was shortened and got a new paint. Achim and Elmar thought that it was a good idea to manage the testflights with a matching propeller which served thousands of hours at this engine, not with a new constructed setup.

The new oilsystem was developped by MeierMotors. The "heart" of that new system is a 126litres oiltank, placed in front of the windshield.

The next point was the oil-cooling-sytem.

At first a bit history :

ss you know, the wartime Fw190 had a special oilcooling system with the socalled "Ringkühler" (ringradiator), the "Panzerring" or "Nasenspaltring" ("armoured ring" or "nose-gap-cowlring" in front of the cowling) and of course the axial-fan. The BMW was an aircooled engine and the fan was attached to a gearbox. The fan rotated about three times faster than the propeller. The fan produced an "overpressure" (dont know the right English term) in the cowling. This pressurized air was at first importent for the compressor of the engine, and second to cool down the oiltemperature while pressing fresh air through the ringradiator. To regulate the temperature in the cowling, the socalled "Panzerring" (armoured ring) was able to sweep about 10centimeters up and forward. Between "Panzerring/nasenspaltring" and cowling the hot air had the chance to leave the cowling through this gap. The radiators were placed in the cowling, as a ring-radiator. With that "Nasenspaltring" or "Panzerring" the temperature of the oil and of course of the cylinderheads were regulated. Tricky construction.

In fact, the ASch82T does not have any gearbox for an axial-fan, so its no use to use an axial-fan to cool down engine and oil. If the fan is not attached on a gearbox, is turns with the same rotations per minute as the propeller. Worst case, this can "block" the airflow in the cowling and you can have big temperature problems. The fan must (!!) rotate faster than the propeller. No fan, no pressure in the cowling, will say temperature-problems. Flugwerk used a radiator under the gun-hood to cool down the oil. MeierMotors went the other way and placed two big radiators in the wing of the aircraft and replaced the "gun-hood-radiator" by a big oiltank as I told above, and it works perfect.

here you can see the intakes in the leading edge

and here the outlet on the right wing

Within this optimize-efforts, a new cowling and cowl-ring was constructed, reinforced and optimized airflowsystem. Another thing was the exhaust-system. same procedure, new contruction to optimize the airflow out of the enginecompartiment. MeierMotors choose another exhaust shape, the used oval exhauststacks instead of the round ones that Flugwerk used. More place = better airflow. Simple but theses are the small puzzlestones for a perfect aircraft. Btw, the original Fw190 had also oval exhauststacks......

here you can see the original Flugwerk-construction at the F-AZZJ, WkNr 990913

The combination fuselage/engine is not the same as in the original Focke Wulf Fw190, so the conversion was lead through according to JAR-23 procedure. As example, the "airflowspar" (dont know the exact english word, sry) was made of high-grade steel as it was assembled at the Iljushin 14. Lot of extra work, but Jerry wanted the best solution, the optimum.

Febraury 2010

Thats it for today

.... to be continued .... not so easy in a foreign language

warbird1 · **Joined:** Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:25 pm **Posts:** 2760

Matthias, can you give an update on Yagen's "long-nosed" 190 that you guys probably will be restoring for him?

andyman64 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:21 pm

well done matthias you did an excellent job of translating this too English we will all look forward to hearing more from you!!!!

TimAPNY · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 10:07 am

Thanks for the updates. Great information about the aircraft.

Tim

Matthias Dorst · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:34 pm

here we are, here we go

a last pic of the exhaust-system

The efforts to optimize the coolings-sytem was absolute the right way. The flighttests 2010 showed that through this optimized coolingsytsem all temperatures were perfect ! No overheatingproblems. The oiltempereature and the temperature of the cylinderheads were perfect ! Hurray.

Lets turn to the fuel-system.... same procedure as at the coolings-system, its a new construction of MeierMotors. Instead of that "tin-can-tank" , MeierMotors choose a 650ltr rubber-tank. Of course this rubber-tank, non-flammable material/fabric, a security feature, and of course custom made in the US for exactly this plane... only the best.

The next thing was the "engine-control" ... again new constructed by MeierMotors. Another security feature was the change of the propeller-adjustment. Flugwerk choosed the electric way, MeierMotors the mechanical way - safety first.

Landing gear .... another story, another improvement, lot of corrections. The fighter weighs about 3700kg, so its also a good idea to improve the breaksystem in that way thats its the same as in the original wartimefighter.

To strengthen and reinforce several sheetings took a lot of time. The elevator got also a improvement according to the original Fw190, the flightcharacteristcs are now better than the flightcharacteristics of F-AZZJ.

In the meantime, Steven Atkin http://www.warbirdcolour.co.uk/index.htm was alarmed

Steven Atkin is one of the partners of MeierMotors, responsible for research, artwork and stencilwork. I think Steven made again a fantastic job on that fighter

MeierMotors spent a lot of original wartimeparts in that fighter-project. Original instruments, tailgear, flapactuators, trimgear of the elevator and so on. Of course all that original parts are checked, restored and certified.

flapactuator testbed

Juergen and his baby February 2010

Elmar Meier and Juergen discussing solutions and improvements

again a good view onto the oiltank

.... thats it for today .... tomorrow you´ll get the continuation !

James D · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:47 pm

Thanks for showing us these Matthias. Very interesting.
What about the long nose?

Matthias Dorst · **Posted:** Thu Jan 27, 2011 3:48 pm

James D wrote:

Thanks for showing us these Matthias. Very interesting.
What about the long nose?

we will see. I hope she will arrive soon

and hope that MeierMotors will get the job. I will inform you when there is something new about that ship.

Matthias Dorst · **Posted:** Thu Jan 27, 2011 4:22 pm

.... next stage .... April 2010

16th April 2010 ..

another milestone, Elmar Meier fired up the engine the first time ! Anything went perfect ... what an engine what a sound. The following days .... tests test tests test

Here Jürgen Meier at the controls on 17th April

concentrated and happy ... Elmar Meier

weathering

a happy Juergen Meier

what a view

May 2010, MeierMotors got the "Permit to Fly" for the airplane D-FMFW. The exact typification is from now on

Focke Wulf Fw190 A8/M and that "M" stands for "MeierMotors" !!

Testruns and finetuning lasted until June 2010.

Achim Meier

Elmar Meier

Juergen Meier

Matthias Dorst · **Posted:** Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:02 pm

Time to find a pilot

MeierMotors engaged Marc "Leon" Mathis, one of the most experienced Focke Wulf pilots. Marc flew at this time for almost 30 hourse on the F-AZZJ, WkNr. 990013.

12th June 2010 Marc Mathis ditched with F-AZZj in the birch of Hyères as he trained for the airshow "100anées Aeronavale". Marc is really a fantastic pilot and he had only a bunch of seconds to decide wether to do a bellylanding on the beach or ditch into the water. Marc checked the beach, too much people, and decided to ditch. He managed the dirching in absolute winglevel with about 250km/h. Fortunatly Marc "Leon" was unhurt and rescued by some jetski-pilots. As Marc told one propellerblade feathered, heavy vibration and of course no power anymore, technical failure of the propellerhub. .... no testflights with the three-blader, no risk !

Repeated farsightedness... MeierMotors immediatly changed the 3-blader to the four-blader bought and stored since 2007. No timelag, and Marc Mathis could start some days later with engine-and taxitests at EDTG in July 2010

Marc at the controls, wearing a t-shirt of those jet-ski-pilots in Hyères

no problems, no overheating, everything perfect, Marc was very pleased

thats it for today ... tomorrow the firstflight pictures ! Good Night

Fred41 · **Posted:** Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:19 pm

Thanks for all these stories !

Iclo · **Posted:** Fri Jan 28, 2011 3:26 pm

Matthias Dorst wrote:

12th June 2010 Marc Mathis ditched with F-AZZj in the birch of Hyères as he trained for the airshow "100anées Aeronavale".

Any news about this poor F-AZZJ ? Had some preservation work been done to reduce the risk of corrosion after her salty bath ?

Sorry to say that but, from what I heard, the assembly of these FW-190 is a looonnnng way to go with a lot of over costs.

Mathieu · **Posted:** Fri Jan 28, 2011 4:39 pm

Hi Matthias,

Wonderfull photos!! Thanks for posting them.But I have a question, they have been using original instruments. Have they been overhauled and there luminous paint being removed?

Best regards,

Mathieu.

Matthias Dorst · **Posted:** Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:04 pm

Iclo wrote:

Matthias Dorst wrote:

12th June 2010 Marc Mathis ditched with F-AZZj in the birch of Hyères as he trained for the airshow "100anées Aeronavale".

Any news about this poor F-AZZJ ? Had some preservation work been done to reduce the risk of corrosion after her salty bath ?

for sure. The airframe was rinsed but I think they will dismantle the whole sheeting to check the airframe. Positive, the french bird was primered, so corrossion is not that thing .... but again safety first, they will dismantle the airframe. The airframe is screwed on a building cradle to avoid some twisting while dismatling the plane

Quote:

Sorry to say that but, from what I heard, the assembly of these FW-190 is a looonnnng way to go with a lot of over costs.

Lot of work but a solvable task. The timetable to flyable condition is about 3 years, but its worth.

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