AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 113 / 332

Plate 113 of 332 · Second World War · Long-range maritime reconnaissance bomber

Focke-Wulf Fw 200 C-3 Condor

Fw 200 C-3 ‘F8+GH’, painted as Focke-Wulf Fw 200 C-3 Condor Werknummer 0074, ‘F8+GH’ of 1./Kampfgeschwader 40, as photographed in 1941, including at Thessaloniki in August 1941: a long-range maritime reconnaissance bomber developed from a four-engined airliner, with a long slender fuselage, a low tapered wing, four BMW-Bramo 323 nine-cylinder radials driving three-blade propellers, twin-wheeled main undercarriage retracting forward into the inner nacelles, a gondola offset under the forward fuselage with gun positions at each end, a low turret behind the cockpit and a raised gun hood on the rear fuselage, shown standing tail down on its wheels: RLM 70 and 71 splinter green upper surfaces and fuselage sides over RLM 65 light blue undersides, black-and-white crosses on the fuselage and under the wings, the code ‘F8+GH’ in black with a white-edged ‘G’ on the fuselage and under the wings, a black swastika edged in white on the fin, and dark green spinners and propellers (no Condor is in a UK museum; shape from an Fw 200 C-3/U2 three-view checked against two period photographs of this aircraft; the upper-surface splinter pattern, the upper-wing crosses, the starboard fin marking and the small fin number are assumed, the unit badge is left off as neither photograph shows it, and the cockpit interior is simplified).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Focke-Wulf Fw 200 C-3 Condor Werknummer 0074, ‘F8+GH’ of 1./Kampfgeschwader 40, as photographed in 1941, including at Thessaloniki in August 1941: a long-range maritime reconnaissance bomber developed from a four-engined airliner, with a long slender fuselage, a low tapered wing, four BMW-Bramo 323 nine-cylinder radials driving three-blade propellers, twin-wheeled main undercarriage retracting forward into the inner nacelles, a gondola offset under the forward fuselage with gun positions at each end, a low turret behind the cockpit and a raised gun hood on the rear fuselage, shown standing tail down on its wheels: RLM 70 and 71 splinter green upper surfaces and fuselage sides over RLM 65 light blue undersides, black-and-white crosses on the fuselage and under the wings, the code ‘F8+GH’ in black with a white-edged ‘G’ on the fuselage and under the wings, a black swastika edged in white on the fin, and dark green spinners and propellers (no Condor is in a UK museum; shape from an Fw 200 C-3/U2 three-view checked against two period photographs of this aircraft; the upper-surface splinter pattern, the upper-wing crosses, the starboard fin marking and the small fin number are assumed, the unit badge is left off as neither photograph shows it, and the cockpit interior is simplified). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (2.6 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Fw 200C); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Fw 200 C-3 ‘F8+GH’ modelled here.

History

The Condor

Kurt Tank designed the Fw 200 in 1936 as a fast four-engined airliner for Deutsche Luft Hansa, which wanted a landplane that could cross the Atlantic. It was a clean, all-metal low-wing monoplane with a long slender fuselage seating 26 passengers, and Tank himself flew the first prototype on 27 July 1937. In August 1938 that aircraft, named Brandenburg, flew non-stop from Berlin to New York and back, and in November it flew to Tokyo. Luft Hansa and the Danish and Brazilian airlines put Condors into service, and one was Hitler’s personal transport.

Japan ordered a maritime reconnaissance version, and when war cut off its delivery the Luftwaffe, which had no long-range bomber of its own for work over the sea, took the idea up. The Fw 200C kept the airliner’s fuselage but added a ventral gondola offset to starboard, carrying bombs, a forward cannon and a rear gun, and gun positions on top of the fuselage. From the summer of 1940 I./Kampfgeschwader 40, based at Bordeaux-Mérignac, flew long patrols far out over the Atlantic, finding convoys for the U-boats and bombing lone merchant ships, and sank so many that Churchill called the Condor ‘the scourge of the Atlantic’.

The C-3 of 1941 had stronger structure and more powerful engines, but the Condor was never built to be a warplane: its back could break in a heavy landing, and it was vulnerable to fighters. The answer was the catapult-launched Hurricanes of the CAM ships and then the escort carriers, beginning with HMS Audacity, whose Martlets shot down several Condors in 1941, and from 1943 the Condor was used mostly for reconnaissance and transport, including the airlift to Stalingrad. Focke-Wulf built 276 Fw 200s. None is in a UK museum; a C-3 raised from the sea off Trondheim in Norway in 1999 is being restored, with parts from other wrecks, for the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin.

This airframe

Fw 200 C-3 Werknummer 0074 ‘F8+GH’

0074The airframe modelled

Werknummer 0074 was an Fw 200 C-3 of 1./Kampfgeschwader 40, coded F8+GH. A Bundesarchiv photograph shows its port side, and in August 1941 it was photographed at Thessaloniki in northern Greece, where part of KG 40 was sent that summer to patrol the eastern Mediterranean. On 5 September 1941 it took off from Elefsina, near Athens, on a reconnaissance flight towards Suez and crashed into the sea off Saronida soon afterwards, killing its crew of six. Divers identified the wreck in 2021–22 from its gondola, undercarriage and a data plate. The model shows it as the two photographs do, standing tail down on its wheels: RLM 70 and 71 splinter green upper surfaces and fuselage sides over RLM 65 light blue undersides, black-and-white crosses on the fuselage and under the wings, the code F8+GH in black with a white-edged G on the fuselage and under the wings, a black swastika edged in white on the fin, and dark green spinners and propellers. Its shape comes from an Fw 200 C-3/U2 three-view, checked against the photographs. The photographs are black and white and show only the sides and undersides, so the splinter pattern on the upper surfaces, the crosses on top of the wings and the starboard fin marking follow standard practice, a small number on the fin is assumed to be the Werknummer, and the KG 40 badge carried by some Condors is left off as neither photograph shows it.

Where to see one

Not on charge

No Condor is in a UK museum. The Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin is restoring one from wrecks recovered in Norway.

All 332 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.