AP 118 · No. 11 Section II · Aircraft Plate 119 / 370

Plate 119 of 370 · Second World War · Maritime reconnaissance flying boat

Blohm & Voss BV 138 C-1

BV 138 C-1 ‘+B’, Tromsø 1945, painted as Blohm & Voss BV 138 C-1 coded ‘+B’, the Luftwaffe maritime reconnaissance flying boat left at the Tromsø (Skattøra) seaplane station in northern Norway at the liberation in 1945: a three-engined monoplane with a short, deep hull, its wing carried on two tail booms that run from the outer engine nacelles to twin fins and rudders joined by a high tailplane, three Junkers Jumo 205D diesels (the centre one high above the hull driving a four-bladed propeller, the outer two three-bladed), stabilising floats under the outer wings, a 20 mm gun turret in the bow and another at the rear of the hull and an open machine-gun position behind the centre engine, shown level on its keel: RLM 72 and 73 dark green splinter camouflage on the upper surfaces, booms, nacelles, fins and hull deck, RLM 65 light blue on the hull sides and undersides, late-war white-outline crosses on the booms with a white ‘B’, white-outline crosses on the wings and a white-outline swastika on each fin (shape from a BV 138 C-1 three-view scaled to the published span, length and height, checked against wartime photographs; the starboard side and its markings follow three Imperial War Museum photographs of this aircraft, and the port side, the wing crosses and the splinter pattern follow standard practice).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Blohm & Voss BV 138 C-1 coded ‘+B’, the Luftwaffe maritime reconnaissance flying boat left at the Tromsø (Skattøra) seaplane station in northern Norway at the liberation in 1945: a three-engined monoplane with a short, deep hull, its wing carried on two tail booms that run from the outer engine nacelles to twin fins and rudders joined by a high tailplane, three Junkers Jumo 205D diesels (the centre one high above the hull driving a four-bladed propeller, the outer two three-bladed), stabilising floats under the outer wings, a 20 mm gun turret in the bow and another at the rear of the hull and an open machine-gun position behind the centre engine, shown level on its keel: RLM 72 and 73 dark green splinter camouflage on the upper surfaces, booms, nacelles, fins and hull deck, RLM 65 light blue on the hull sides and undersides, late-war white-outline crosses on the booms with a white ‘B’, white-outline crosses on the wings and a white-outline swastika on each fin (shape from a BV 138 C-1 three-view scaled to the published span, length and height, checked against wartime photographs; the starboard side and its markings follow three Imperial War Museum photographs of this aircraft, and the port side, the wing crosses and the splinter pattern follow standard practice). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.2 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (BV 138C-1); engine, crew and dimensions are for the BV 138 C-1 ‘+B’, Tromsø 1945 modelled here.

History

The BV 138 C-1

Hamburger Flugzeugbau, the aircraft company of the Blohm & Voss shipyard, designed the Ha 138 in the mid-1930s as a long-range reconnaissance flying boat for the Luftwaffe’s sea units. Its chief designer, Richard Vogt, gave it a short, deep hull carrying the crew and a broad wing, with the tail carried on two booms that ran back from the outer engines to twin fins joined by a high tailplane. It was powered by three Junkers Jumo 205 diesels, the centre one mounted high above the hull, because diesels burned less fuel and gave the long endurance a patrol aircraft needed. The first prototype flew on 15 July 1937.

The prototypes handled badly on the water and in the air, and the design was largely redrawn with a bigger hull and larger booms and tail before production began as the BV 138A. Its structure was still too weak: the first aircraft served as transports in the Norwegian campaign in April 1940, but the A-1 and the strengthened B-1 both needed further work before they could be flown hard. The definitive BV 138 C-1, with a stronger structure, more powerful Jumo 205D engines, a four-bladed centre propeller and 20 mm cannon in power turrets in the bow and the rear of the hull, entered service in 1941; 227 of the 297 BV 138s built were C-1s.

From bases in northern Norway the BV 138 became the Arctic shadower of the Allied convoys to Murmansk and Archangel. It could stay with a convoy for hours just out of gun range, reporting its course and calling in bombers and U-boats, as it did against PQ 17 and PQ 18 in 1942, and the Royal Navy sent Sea Hurricanes from catapult ships and escort carriers to drive it off. BV 138s also patrolled over the Baltic and the Black Sea, could be catapulted from seaplane tenders, and a few were fitted with a large magnetic ring to sweep mines. Its crews called it the flying clog. No complete BV 138 survives.

This airframe

BV 138 C-1 ‘+B’, Tromsø 1945

+BThe airframe modelled

‘+B’ is a BV 138 C-1 that was left at the seaplane station at Skattøra, outside Tromsø in northern Norway, when the German forces in Norway surrendered in May 1945. British photographers recorded it there standing on its beaching trolley, in three photographs now in the Imperial War Museum’s collection, all of its starboard side. The captions give neither its unit nor its Werknummer, so neither is claimed or painted. It is modelled because no complete BV 138 survives, and ‘+B’ is the C-1 whose markings are best shown in photographs. None is in a UK museum. The model shows it level on its keel: RLM 72 and 73 dark green splinter camouflage on the upper surfaces, booms, nacelles, fins and hull deck, RLM 65 light blue on the hull sides and undersides, the late-war white-outline cross on each boom with a white ‘B’ beside it, and a white-outline swastika standing on its point on each fin. It has the four-bladed centre propeller, the bow and rear 20 mm turrets and the open gun position behind the centre engine of the C-1. Its shape comes from a BV 138 C-1 three-view scaled to the type’s span, length and height, checked against wartime photographs. The photographs are black and white, so the colours are the standard ones; the port side, which they do not show, mirrors the starboard, and the wing crosses and the splinter pattern follow standard practice. The beaching trolley is not modelled.

Where to see one

Not on charge

No complete BV 138 survives.

All 370 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.