AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 111 / 264

Plate 111 of 264 · Second World War · Tactical reconnaissance and army co-operation aircraft

Focke-Wulf Fw 189 A-1

Fw 189 A-1, Werknummer 2100 ‘V7+1H’, painted as Werknummer 2100 ‘V7+1H’, a Focke-Wulf Fw 189 A-1 of 1.(H)/32, the Luftwaffe army reconnaissance Staffel in Finnish Lapland, as it was on 4 May 1943, the day Soviet Hurricanes shot it down near Murmansk: the Luftwaffe’s tactical reconnaissance and army co-operation aircraft, a twin-boom monoplane with a glazed central nacelle for its crew of three, two 465 hp Argus As 410 inverted-V12 air-cooled engines in the front of the booms driving two-bladed Argus propellers, twin fins joined by the tailplane, and a gunner’s position in the tail cone, shown standing tail-down on its main wheels and tail wheels: RLM 70 and 71 splinter camouflage over RLM 65 undersides, worn under a hand-brushed winter whitewash, black crosses on the booms and wings, ‘V7+1H’ in black on the booms, a swastika and ‘2100’ on the outer faces of the fins, the Staffel’s white stork on both sides of the nacelle and yellow under the wing tips (shape from the Wikimedia Commons Fw 189 A-1 three-view, cross-checked against the airwar.ru drawings; markings from the account and photographs of the wreck’s surviving skins, with the code layout following a photograph of the Staffel’s V7+1J; the whitewash and splinter pattern are representative); the only surviving Fw 189, it was recovered from the forest in 1991–92 and is being rebuilt by the Aircraft Restoration Company at Duxford.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Werknummer 2100 ‘V7+1H’, a Focke-Wulf Fw 189 A-1 of 1.(H)/32, the Luftwaffe army reconnaissance Staffel in Finnish Lapland, as it was on 4 May 1943, the day Soviet Hurricanes shot it down near Murmansk: the Luftwaffe’s tactical reconnaissance and army co-operation aircraft, a twin-boom monoplane with a glazed central nacelle for its crew of three, two 465 hp Argus As 410 inverted-V12 air-cooled engines in the front of the booms driving two-bladed Argus propellers, twin fins joined by the tailplane, and a gunner’s position in the tail cone, shown standing tail-down on its main wheels and tail wheels: RLM 70 and 71 splinter camouflage over RLM 65 undersides, worn under a hand-brushed winter whitewash, black crosses on the booms and wings, ‘V7+1H’ in black on the booms, a swastika and ‘2100’ on the outer faces of the fins, the Staffel’s white stork on both sides of the nacelle and yellow under the wing tips (shape from the Wikimedia Commons Fw 189 A-1 three-view, cross-checked against the airwar.ru drawings; markings from the account and photographs of the wreck’s surviving skins, with the code layout following a photograph of the Staffel’s V7+1J; the whitewash and splinter pattern are representative); the only surviving Fw 189, it was recovered from the forest in 1991–92 and is being rebuilt by the Aircraft Restoration Company at Duxford. 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 (A-1); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Fw 189 A-1, Werknummer 2100 ‘V7+1H’ modelled here.

History

The Fw 189

In 1937 the Reich Air Ministry asked for a three-seat tactical reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Henschel Hs 126, with the best possible view for its crew. Arado offered the conventional single-engined Ar 198, Blohm & Voss built the lopsided BV 141 as a private venture, and Focke-Wulf, under Kurt Tank, drew a twin-boom monoplane: two small Argus air-cooled engines at the front of the booms, twin fins joined by the tailplane, and between them a nacelle that was glazed almost all over. The prototype first flew in July 1938. The ministry was sceptical of so unusual a shape, but the Fw 189 beat its rivals in trials and was ordered into production.

The A-1 entered service in 1940 and went to war in earnest with the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Its crew of pilot, observer and flight engineer sat with the ground spread below them, and it was armed with two fixed MG 17 machine guns in the wing roots and two flexible MG 15s, one firing above the cabin and one from the tail cone. German soldiers called it the flying eye; Soviet troops called it Rama, the frame, for the shape it made overhead. It was slow, but it was strong and could turn inside a fighter, and crews brought it home with heavy damage. Late in the war a number were fitted with radar and used as night fighters against the Soviet biplanes that harassed German lines after dark.

Focke-Wulf built the Fw 189 at Bremen, then handed production to Aero in occupied Prague and to the SNCASO factory at Bordeaux-Mérignac in occupied France; 864 were built before production ended in 1944, including a few B-model trainers with a conventional enclosed cabin. Hungary and Slovakia also flew the type. As the Hs 126’s replacement it became the Luftwaffe’s standard short-range reconnaissance aircraft on the Eastern Front, until losses to Soviet fighters in 1944 left the work to fighter-reconnaissance versions of the Bf 109 and Fw 190.

This airframe

Fw 189 A-1 Werknummer 2100 ‘V7+1H’

2100The airframe modelled

The only surviving Fw 189 is Werknummer 2100, built by Aero in Prague in 1941. With 1.(H)/32, the reconnaissance Staffel based at Pontsalenjoki in Finnish Lapland, it flew as ‘V7+1H’, and on 4 May 1943, photographing the Soviet airfield at Loukhi, it was shot down by Hurricanes. The pilot, Lothar Mothes, walked back to the German lines; his two crewmen were killed. Jim Pearce found the wreck in 1991 and it was lifted out by helicopter and brought to Britain in 1992. It later passed to Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection in the United States and came back for rebuilding by the Aircraft Restoration Company at Duxford, which offered the unfinished project for sale in 2021–22. No restoration paint scheme had been applied, so the model shows 2100 as it was lost: RLM 70 and 71 splinter camouflage over RLM 65 undersides, worn under a hand-brushed winter whitewash, black crosses on the booms and wings, a swastika and ‘2100’ on the fins, the Staffel’s white stork below the cockpit and yellow under the wing tips. No photograph of its codes has been found, so their layout follows a photograph of the Staffel’s ‘V7+1J’, and the whitewash and splinter pattern are representative. The shape follows the Wikimedia Commons Fw 189 A-1 three-view, cross-checked against the airwar.ru drawings.

See it at IWM Duxford

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Fw 189 in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 264 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.