Alternate History Combat Aircraft
- Thread starter S. Marlowski
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At least it wouldnt be any worse than the Buffalo, Mohawk, Vanguard and other US junk they bought@Uruk
The contrast between the old-school engine cowling and the late war bubble canopy is realy striking. I like itDo you think it would have been a usable fighter with the proposed Perseus engine? The Mercury is obviously pretty underpowered even for the timeframe.
After the end of WW2, the Horten brothers found themselves with a lot of experience but without job. They had designed a lot of military planes for Nazi Germany but with the demilitarization following the Allies victory, their choice was to either find employment in the civilian market or go back as pilots. Taking their plans for the "Amerika Bomber", the Ho XVIII, they redesigned it as a much more reasonable civilian liner motorized by four Jumo 205D, plentiful with the dismantling of the Luftwaffe, but boosted by English supercharger.
Made with obsolete engines and limited to only 24 passenger, it was however cheap and made in Germany out of an old Gotha aircraft factory sold to them, as for the Allies it was a good idea to make the German work again but in a peaceful industry. Its main advantage was its incredible range of 7800 km with its regular cargo, with a speed of 428 km/h at cruise speed, allowing trans-Atlantic flight at high altitude of 8800 m with a completely pressurized cabins. The difficulty of piloting a flying wing meant that only a few ex-Luftwaffe pilots, already trained on flying wings like Ho 229, were initially recruited to test the plane and, if successful, fly it.
One of the most impressive feature of the plane was that the passenger seats were in the wings, the pressurized section of the fuselage was extended partway into the side of the plane. The middle section was mainly used for cargo, system and services like kitchenette and bathrooms. On two ranks, the seats were all facing the front which offered a window bay to admire the sky. Made of reinforced, bullet-proof, glass designed to both resist the pressure difference and miscellaneous impacts. His novelty and futuristic design jump-started its career in the Lufthansa in 1952 who commanded 10 planes, wishing to also have German-made plane for its service. Many passengers were also booking Ho XII tickets for having a chance of trying the novel design. But after an impressive start, things began to go down.
The boosted Jumo 205D would become a headache for the maintenance crew due to the high level of wear and tear imposed by the longest fly route, so it was restricted to 3800 m of altitude to avoid using the supercharger too much, reducing its range to barely above 5000 km. With the growing competition of cheap American plane arriving on the market, with more then the double of the passenger, coupled with the difficult pilot training, meant that the Ho XII was slowly be unavoidably removed from use by the Lufthansa. Convair and Lockheed planes began replacing the flying wing in the German sky.
In a last ditch effort to maintain business, the amount of passenger would be doubled by cramping the seats but even this was not enough and in 1961 the plan to modernize the Ho XII with new engines was abandoned.
The Horten company and its factory would be sold to the Junker group who stopped all production for the Ho XII and was in the process of selling the remaining ones for scrap. What would stop these plans would be Brazil, buying the 5 finished Ho XII with all the spare pieces remaining, they would keep buying at cheap price the old mothballed Ho XII of Lufthansa to cannibalize them for spare part, flying their old Horten XII under the Táxi Aéreo Marília banner until 1971 for local cargo, with all the passenger seats removed.
With a single one remaining as a museum piece at the Smithsonian's Air and Space museum, this left many wondering what would have happened if the Horten XII had been a success, with the dream of a civilian Ho XVIII circling the globe in the mind of many.
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Great stories as always but from the picture I dont quite undestand how the engines are mounted
After the end of WW2, the Horten brothers found themselves with a lot of experience but without job. They had designed a lot of military planes for Nazi Germany but with the demilitarization following the Allies victory, their choice was to either find employment in the civilian market or go back as pilots. Taking their plans for the "Amerika Bomber", the Ho XVIII, they redesigned it as a much more reasonable civilian liner motorized by four Jumo 205D, plentiful with the dismantling of the Luftwaffe, but boosted by English supercharger.
Made with obsolete engines and limited to only 24 passenger, it was however cheap and made in Germany out of an old Gotha aircraft factory sold to them, as for the Allies it was a good idea to make the German work again but in a peaceful industry. Its main advantage was its incredible range of 7800 km with its regular cargo, with a speed of 428 km/h at cruise speed, allowing trans-Atlantic flight at high altitude of 8800 m with a completely pressurized cabins. The difficulty of piloting a flying wing meant that only a few ex-Luftwaffe pilots, already trained on flying wings like Ho 229, were initially recruited to test the plane and, if successful, fly it.
One of the most impressive feature of the plane was that the passenger seats were in the wings, the pressurized section of the fuselage was extended partway into the side of the plane. The middle section was mainly used for cargo, system and services like kitchenette and bathrooms. On two ranks, the seats were all facing the front which offered a window bay to admire the sky. Made of reinforced, bullet-proof, glass designed to both resist the pressure difference and miscellaneous impacts. His novelty and futuristic design jump-started its career in the Lufthansa in 1952 who commanded 10 planes, wishing to also have German-made plane for its service. Many passengers were also booking Ho XII tickets for having a chance of trying the novel design. But after an impressive start, things began to go down.
The boosted Jumo 205D would become a headache for the maintenance crew due to the high level of wear and tear imposed by the longest fly route, so it was restricted to 3800 m of altitude to avoid using the supercharger too much, reducing its range to barely above 5000 km. With the growing competition of cheap American plane arriving on the market, with more then the double of the passenger, coupled with the difficult pilot training, meant that the Ho XII was slowly be unavoidably removed from use by the Lufthansa. Convair and Lockheed planes began replacing the flying wing in the German sky.
In a last ditch effort to maintain business, the amount of passenger would be doubled by cramping the seats but even this was not enough and in 1961 the plan to modernize the Ho XII with new engines was abandoned.
The Horten company and its factory would be sold to the Junker group who stopped all production for the Ho XII and was in the process of selling the remaining ones for scrap. What would stop these plans would be Brazil, buying the 5 finished Ho XII with all the spare pieces remaining, they would keep buying at cheap price the old mothballed Ho XII of Lufthansa to cannibalize them for spare part, flying their old Horten XII under the Táxi Aéreo Marília banner until 1971 for local cargo, with all the passenger seats removed.
With a single one remaining as a museum piece at the Smithsonian's Air and Space museum, this left many wondering what would have happened if the Horten XII had been a success, with the dream of a civilian Ho XVIII circling the globe in the mind of many.
Yeah I see that but they are mounted so far back on the wing it looks like the props will hit the wing
That's due to my limited editing skill, I might modify it to show its angledMore German aircraft in Japanese service.
Inspired by this Thread- https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...itch-places-after-pearl-harbor-attack.514465/
Inspired by this Thread- https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...itch-places-after-pearl-harbor-attack.514465/
The P.119 makes for an interesting Japanese/Italian cooperation aircraft as it is powered by a radial engine, which is very much in line with japanese design principles, although its a very weird choice for an engine mounted so far back and would most likely have run into serious cooling issues. If you do not have to have Italo-Japanese types you could go with something like the Ki-88 or Ki-94-II for a late war high performance fighter.
The P.133 is interesting, never saw that one before. From what I can gather its actually very comparable to the Liberator in terms of performance and carries realy heavy defensive armament. Compared to Japanese heavy bomber projects, that plane seems to be somewhat on par with the G8N (which aside from its stats on paper would have been seriously horrible to fly) and better than the G5N/Ki-68 but worse than the Ki-91 (though im not sure how feasible that design actually is, as its more or less in the Superfortress class of bombers).
The P.133 is interesting, never saw that one before. From what I can gather its actually very comparable to the Liberator in terms of performance and carries realy heavy defensive armament. Compared to Japanese heavy bomber projects, that plane seems to be somewhat on par with the G8N (which aside from its stats on paper would have been seriously horrible to fly) and better than the G5N/Ki-68 but worse than the Ki-91 (though im not sure how feasible that design actually is, as its more or less in the Superfortress class of bombers).
I used the P.119 because it was a cool looking pic and sometimes I just use the rule of cool and not so much a serious attempt at an improved design over an OTL aircraft.
The P.133 was an Italian copy of a captured B 24, I'm not sure if they completed an example of the plane before the war ended.
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According to the "Secret Projects forum" 8 were under construction when the armistice was signed an none completed