AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 157 / 310

Plate 157 of 310 · Second World War · Push-pull heavy fighter

Dornier Do 335 Pfeil

Do 335 A-0 W.Nr 240102 ‘VG+PH’, painted as Do 335 A-0 Werknummer 240102, the only surviving Dornier Do 335 Pfeil, captured at Oberpfaffenhofen in April 1945, shipped to the United States aboard HMS Reaper, restored by Dornier in 1975 and displayed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, with the factory codes ‘VG+PH’: a single-seat heavy fighter with two Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines in tandem, one pulling a three-blade propeller at the nose behind an annular radiator and one behind the cockpit pushing a second propeller at the tail, a belly radiator scoop for the rear engine, a straight tapered low wing, a cruciform tail with dorsal and ventral fins and a tricycle undercarriage: a splinter of dark and light green over light blue undersides, a dark green nose cowl and tail, black codes either side of a white-outlined fuselage cross with the rear exhaust stacks running through it, a white-outlined swastika and ‘102’ on the fin, white-outlined crosses above the wings and black crosses below, black-green spinners and propellers, and the nose and inner main-gear doors hanging open, as photographed at Udvar-Hazy (no Do 335 is preserved in a UK museum; shape from a Wikimedia Commons three-view checked against photographs, with the main-gear track estimated from a head-on photograph; the wing and tail splinter follows the balance of the photographs rather than tracing each panel, the fuselage camouflage is mirrored side to side and the small stencils are left off).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Do 335 A-0 Werknummer 240102, the only surviving Dornier Do 335 Pfeil, captured at Oberpfaffenhofen in April 1945, shipped to the United States aboard HMS Reaper, restored by Dornier in 1975 and displayed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, with the factory codes ‘VG+PH’: a single-seat heavy fighter with two Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines in tandem, one pulling a three-blade propeller at the nose behind an annular radiator and one behind the cockpit pushing a second propeller at the tail, a belly radiator scoop for the rear engine, a straight tapered low wing, a cruciform tail with dorsal and ventral fins and a tricycle undercarriage: a splinter of dark and light green over light blue undersides, a dark green nose cowl and tail, black codes either side of a white-outlined fuselage cross with the rear exhaust stacks running through it, a white-outlined swastika and ‘102’ on the fin, white-outlined crosses above the wings and black crosses below, black-green spinners and propellers, and the nose and inner main-gear doors hanging open, as photographed at Udvar-Hazy (no Do 335 is preserved in a UK museum; shape from a Wikimedia Commons three-view checked against photographs, with the main-gear track estimated from a head-on photograph; the wing and tail splinter follows the balance of the photographs rather than tracing each panel, the fuselage camouflage is mirrored side to side and the small stencils are left off). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (859 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Do 335A); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Do 335 A-0 W.Nr 240102 ‘VG+PH’ modelled here.

History

The Do 335 Pfeil

Claude Dornier had patented the idea of a pair of engines in tandem, one pulling at the nose and one pushing at the tail, in the 1930s. It promised the power of a twin-engined aircraft with the narrow frontal area of a single, and without the drag of wing-mounted nacelles or the swing of an engine failure on one side. In 1940 the small Göppingen Gö 9 research aircraft tested the long drive shaft and rear propeller, and when the German Air Ministry asked for a fast unarmed bomber in 1942, Dornier offered the layout. The requirement soon turned into a heavy fighter, and the Do 335 V1 first flew from Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich, on 26 October 1943.

The Do 335 was large for a single-seat fighter. A Daimler-Benz DB 603 at the nose drove a three-blade propeller around a 30 mm cannon, with an annular radiator behind the spinner, and a second DB 603 behind the cockpit drove another propeller behind a cruciform tail, its radiator in a scoop under the fuselage. A tricycle undercarriage kept the rear propeller off the ground, and a ventral fin with a bumper guarded it on take-off. Because a pilot bailing out would have flown into the rear propeller, the Do 335 had one of the first ejection seats, blown clear by compressed air once explosive bolts had thrown off the rear propeller and the upper fin.

At about 474 mph it was among the fastest piston-engined fighters of the war, and its pilots called it the Ameisenbär, the anteater, for its long nose. Pre-production A-0s were delivered from the summer of 1944 to Erprobungskommando 335 for service trials, and two-seat trainer and night-fighter versions followed, but bombing of the factories and the collapse of Germany meant that only about 37 were completed before American troops reached Oberpfaffenhofen in April 1945. None flew in combat in any numbers. Only one survives, in the United States; no Do 335 is in a UK museum.

This airframe

Do 335 A-0 W.Nr 240102 ‘VG+PH’

240102The airframe modelled

Werknummer 240102 was the second pre-production Do 335 A-0, carrying the factory radio code ‘VG+PH’. American forces found it at Oberpfaffenhofen in April 1945, and it was shipped to the United States aboard the escort carrier HMS Reaper with other captured German aircraft, test-flown by the US Army Air Forces at Freeman Field, Indiana, and later passed to the Smithsonian. In 1974 it was returned to Dornier at Oberpfaffenhofen for restoration, partly by workers who had built Do 335s during the war, and they found the explosive charges for jettisoning the tail still in place. It is the only Do 335 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 splinter of dark and light green over light blue undersides, a dark green nose cowl and tail, black codes either side of a white-outlined fuselage cross with the rear exhaust stacks running through it, a white-outlined swastika and ‘102’ on the fin, black-green spinners and propellers, and the nose and inner main-gear doors hanging open. Its shape comes from a three-view drawing checked against the photographs; the main-gear track is estimated from a head-on photograph, the wing and tail splinter follows the balance of the photographs rather than tracing each panel, and the fuselage camouflage is mirrored side to side.

Where to see one

Not on charge

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

All 310 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.