AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 154 / 305

Plate 154 of 305 · Second World War · Jet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft

Arado Ar 234 Blitz

Ar 234 B-2 W.Nr 140312 ‘F1+GS’, painted as Ar 234 B-2 Werknummer 140312, the only surviving Arado Ar 234 Blitz, flown by III./KG 76, surrendered at Stavanger-Sola, Norway, in May 1945, shipped to the United States aboard HMS Reaper and displayed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, as restored in 1984–89 with the codes ‘F1+GS’: a single-seat jet bomber with a slim fuselage, a fully glazed nose for the pilot, a high-mounted straight wing carrying two Junkers Jumo 004B turbojets in underslung nacelles, a tall fin, a tricycle undercarriage, two Walter rocket take-off pods under the wings and a 500 kg bomb under the fuselage: a hard-edged splinter of olive brown and light green over light blue-grey undersides, red intake lips on both engines, a red ‘G’ and pale squiggles on the nose, black codes with a white-outlined cross on the fuselage, the Werknummer and a swastika on the fin, and black crosses under the wings, as photographed at Udvar-Hazy (no Ar 234 is preserved in a UK museum; shape from a Wikimedia Commons three-view of the Ar 234 B; the height follows the photographs, which put the fin tip about 4.5 m up rather than the often-quoted 4.29 m; the starboard codes follow standard Luftwaffe practice, the camouflage is mirrored side to side, and the cockpit and glazing frames are simplified).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Ar 234 B-2 Werknummer 140312, the only surviving Arado Ar 234 Blitz, flown by III./KG 76, surrendered at Stavanger-Sola, Norway, in May 1945, shipped to the United States aboard HMS Reaper and displayed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, as restored in 1984–89 with the codes ‘F1+GS’: a single-seat jet bomber with a slim fuselage, a fully glazed nose for the pilot, a high-mounted straight wing carrying two Junkers Jumo 004B turbojets in underslung nacelles, a tall fin, a tricycle undercarriage, two Walter rocket take-off pods under the wings and a 500 kg bomb under the fuselage: a hard-edged splinter of olive brown and light green over light blue-grey undersides, red intake lips on both engines, a red ‘G’ and pale squiggles on the nose, black codes with a white-outlined cross on the fuselage, the Werknummer and a swastika on the fin, and black crosses under the wings, as photographed at Udvar-Hazy (no Ar 234 is preserved in a UK museum; shape from a Wikimedia Commons three-view of the Ar 234 B; the height follows the photographs, which put the fin tip about 4.5 m up rather than the often-quoted 4.29 m; the starboard codes follow standard Luftwaffe practice, the camouflage is mirrored side to side, and the cockpit and glazing frames are simplified). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.4 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Ar 234B-2); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Ar 234 B-2 W.Nr 140312 ‘F1+GS’ modelled here.

History

The Blitz

In 1940 the German Air Ministry asked Arado for a fast reconnaissance aircraft to be powered by the new turbojets that Junkers and BMW were developing, with the range to photograph the British Isles. Arado’s design, led by Walter Blume and Hans Rebeski, was a slim single-seater with a high straight wing, an engine hung beneath each side of it, and the pilot sitting right in the glazed nose. To save weight and leave the fuselage free for fuel, the first prototypes took off from a jettisonable wheeled trolley and landed on retractable skids. The engines were late, and the Ar 234 V1 did not fly until 30 July 1943, from Rheine in north-west Germany, as one of the first jet aircraft in the world.

The trolley and skids were unworkable on an operational airfield, so the production Ar 234 B was given a conventional tricycle undercarriage in a slightly wider fuselage. The B-2 could carry bombs or cameras, with an autopilot and a periscope sight that let the lone pilot bomb in a shallow dive, or in level flight with the autopilot engaged, swinging the control column aside to use a bombsight in the nose. On 2 August 1944 Leutnant Erich Sommer flew an Ar 234 prototype over the Allied beachhead in Normandy and in about an hour and a half photographed the Allied build-up that piston-engined reconnaissance aircraft could no longer reach: the first jet reconnaissance mission in history.

From the end of 1944, Kampfgeschwader 76 flew the B-2 as a bomber, first in the Ardennes and then, in March 1945, in repeated attacks on the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen after American troops had seized it intact. Reconnaissance Ar 234s flew from Norway and the Netherlands over Britain and its naval bases, too fast and high for most fighters to catch, and in April 1945 one made the last German overflight of the United Kingdom of the war. About 210 production B-series aircraft were built, but shortages of fuel, engines and trained pilots kept the numbers in service small. Only one survives, in the United States; no Ar 234 is in a UK museum.

This airframe

Ar 234 B-2 W.Nr 140312 ‘F1+GS’

140312The airframe modelled

Werknummer 140312 is an Ar 234 B-2 that flew with III. Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 76 and was one of nine Ar 234s surrendered to British forces at Sola airfield, near Stavanger in Norway, in May 1945. It was taken to Cherbourg and shipped to the United States aboard the escort carrier HMS Reaper with other captured German aircraft, test-flown by the US Army Air Forces as FE-1010 at Wright Field and Freeman Field, and passed to the Smithsonian in 1949. Restored between 1984 and 1989, it is the only Ar 234 in existence and is displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia. The model shows it as photographs of it there do: a hard-edged splinter of olive brown and light green over light blue-grey undersides, red intake lips on both engines, a red ‘G’ among pale squiggles on the nose, the codes ‘F1+GS’ with a white-outlined cross on the fuselage, the Werknummer and a swastika on the fin, black crosses under the wings, and the undercarriage down with two Walter rocket take-off pods under the wings and a 500 kg bomb beneath the fuselage. Its shape comes from a three-view of the Ar 234 B; the photographs put the fin tip about 4.5 metres above the floor, higher than the 4.29 metres usually quoted, and the model follows them. The starboard codes follow standard Luftwaffe practice, as no photograph shows that side clearly, and the cockpit and glazing frames are simplified.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The only survivor is at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

All 305 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.