AP 118 · No. 11 Section II · Aircraft Plate 185 / 370

Plate 185 of 370 · Second World War · Long-range maritime reconnaissance and transport

Junkers Ju 290 A-4

Ju 290 A-4 Werknummer 0165, ‘022’ “Alles Kaputt”, painted as Junkers Ju 290 A-4 Werknummer 0165, formerly A3+HB of KG 200, as it stood at Orly and on arrival at Freeman Field, Indiana, on 2 August 1945 after being flown across the Atlantic by the USAAF as ‘022’ “Alles Kaputt”: a four-engined long-range transport and maritime reconnaissance aircraft with four BMW 801 fourteen-cylinder radials driving three-bladed propellers, a long glazed nose with FuG 200 radar aerials, a gun gondola under the nose, gun turrets on the fuselage roof, a glazed tail gun position, a 42 m wing and twin fins and rudders on a tailplane with dihedral, shown tail down on its twin-wheeled main gear: light blue-grey upper surfaces with a soft grey wave pattern, black fuselage sides, undersides, fins and rudders, US stars and bars on both sides of the rear fuselage, white ‘022’ on the outer face of each fin and “Alles Kaputt” in red script on the port nose; no Ju 290 survives, the photographs are mostly black and white, and the upper port wing star is inferred from US practice (shape from a Ju 290 A-7 three-view scaled to the published span and length, checked against a wartime three-view and photographs of this aircraft).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Junkers Ju 290 A-4 Werknummer 0165, formerly A3+HB of KG 200, as it stood at Orly and on arrival at Freeman Field, Indiana, on 2 August 1945 after being flown across the Atlantic by the USAAF as ‘022’ “Alles Kaputt”: a four-engined long-range transport and maritime reconnaissance aircraft with four BMW 801 fourteen-cylinder radials driving three-bladed propellers, a long glazed nose with FuG 200 radar aerials, a gun gondola under the nose, gun turrets on the fuselage roof, a glazed tail gun position, a 42 m wing and twin fins and rudders on a tailplane with dihedral, shown tail down on its twin-wheeled main gear: light blue-grey upper surfaces with a soft grey wave pattern, black fuselage sides, undersides, fins and rudders, US stars and bars on both sides of the rear fuselage, white ‘022’ on the outer face of each fin and “Alles Kaputt” in red script on the port nose; no Ju 290 survives, the photographs are mostly black and white, and the upper port wing star is inferred from US practice (shape from a Ju 290 A-7 three-view scaled to the published span and length, checked against a wartime three-view and photographs of this aircraft). 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 (Ju 290A); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Ju 290 A-4 Werknummer 0165, ‘022’ “Alles Kaputt” modelled here.

History

The Ju 290 A-4

The Ju 290 grew out of a bomber that was never built. Junkers’ four-engined Ju 89, designed for the Luftwaffe’s ‘Ural bomber’ programme, was cancelled in 1937, and its wing and tail went into the Ju 90, a 40-seat airliner for Lufthansa. When the war stopped airline flying, Junkers lengthened a Ju 90, gave it BMW 801 radials and a hydraulic loading ramp under the rear fuselage, the Trapoklappe, and offered it as a long-range transport. The first Ju 290 flew on 16 July 1942.

The first aircraft went straight to work as transports, and two were sent to fly supplies into Stalingrad in January 1943; the Ju 290 V1 crashed taking off overloaded with wounded at Tatsinskaya. The Luftwaffe’s greater need was a long-range eye over the Atlantic, so most of the rest were built for maritime reconnaissance, with FuG 200 Hohentwiel search radar in the nose, a gun gondola under it and power-operated gun turrets on the fuselage roof. From late 1943 Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5, based at Mont-de-Marsan in south-west France, flew them far out over the Atlantic to find Allied convoys for the U-boats, and lost several to carrier fighters.

When the Allied invasion of France ended the Atlantic patrols in 1944, the surviving Ju 290s went to KG 200, the Luftwaffe’s special-duties wing, to fly agents and supplies on long flights behind the lines; a six-engined development, the Ju 390, flew in 1943 but was not ordered. Only about 65 Ju 290s were built. In the last days of the war one flew to Barcelona and was taken over by the Spanish Air Force, which flew it until the mid-1950s, and another was flown to the United States for testing; none survives.

This airframe

Ju 290 A-4 Werknummer 0165, ‘022’ “Alles Kaputt”

0165The airframe modelled

Werknummer 0165 was the first of five Ju 290 A-4s, coded PI+PS when new and later A3+HB with KG 200. It was surrendered near Munich on 6 May 1945 and taken over by Colonel Harold Watson’s team, ‘Watson’s Whizzers’, who collected advanced German aircraft for the US Army Air Forces. They painted it as ‘022’, named it “Alles Kaputt” and flew it from Orly across the Atlantic by way of the Azores and Bermuda at the end of July 1945. It reached Freeman Field, Indiana, on 2 August 1945, became FE-3400, was shown at the Army Air Forces Fair at Dayton that October and was scrapped at Wright Field in December 1946. It is modelled because no Ju 290 survives, and 0165 is the only one photographed from every side. None is in a UK museum. The model shows it as photographed at Orly and Freeman Field, standing tail down on its wheels: light blue-grey upper surfaces with a soft grey wave pattern, black fuselage sides, undersides, fins and rudders from its KG 200 night scheme, US stars and bars on both sides of the rear fuselage, white ‘022’ on the outer face of each fin and “Alles Kaputt” in red script on the port nose. Its shape comes from a Ju 290 A-7 three-view, which shares 0165’s glazed nose, scaled to the published span and length and checked against a wartime three-view and the photographs. The photographs are mostly black and white, so the colours are the standard ones; the star on the upper port wing, which no photograph shows clearly, follows US practice.

Where to see one

Not on charge

No Ju 290 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.