Focke - Wulf fw189

The Focke-Wulf Fw 189 Uhu ("Eagle Owl") is a German twin-engine, twin-boom, three-seat tactical reconnaissance and army cooperation aircraft. It first flew in 1938 (Fw 189 V1), entered service in 1940 and was produced until mid-1944. In addition, Focke-Wulf used this airframe in response to a tender request by the RLM for a dedicated ground-attack airplane, and later submitted an armored version for trials. However, the Henschel Hs 129 was selected instead. In 1937, the German Ministry of Aviation issued a specification for a short-range, three-seat reconnaissance aircraft with a good all-round view to support the German army in the field, replacing the Henschel Hs 126, which had just entered service. A power of about 850–900 hp (630–670 kW) was specified. The specification was issued to Arado and Focke-Wulf. Arado's design, the Ar 198, which was initially the preferred option, was a relatively conventional single-engined high-wing monoplane with a glazed gondola under the fuselage. Focke-Wulf's chief designer Kurt Tank's design, the Fw 189, was a twin-boom design, powered by two Argus As 410 engines instead of with an expected single engine. As a "twin-boom" design like the earlier Dutch Fokker G. I from 1936, the Fw 189 used a central crew gondola for its crew accommodation, which for the Fw 189 would be designed with a heavily glazed and framed "stepless" cockpit forward section, which used no separate windscreen panels for the pilot (as with many German medium bombers from 1938 onwards). Blohm & Voss, however, proposed as a private venture something even more radical: chief designer Dr. Richard Vogt's unique asymmetric BV 141. Orders were placed for three prototypes, each of the Arado and Focke-Wulf designs, in April 1937. The Fw 189 had as part of its defensive armament design, an innovative rear-gun emplacement designed by the Ikaria-Werke: a rotating conical rear "turret" of sorts, manually rotated with a metal-framed, glazed conical fairing streamlin