The EF 132 was a planned jet
bomber
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...
, under development for the ''
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
'' during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. It was the last aircraft project development undertaken by
Junkers
Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (JFM, earlier JCO or JKO in World War I, English: Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) more commonly Junkers , was a major German aircraft and aircraft engine manufacturer. It was founded there in Dessau, Germ ...
during the war, and was the culmination of the
Ju 287
The Junkers Ju 287 was an aerodynamic testbed built in Nazi Germany to develop the technology required for a multi-engine jet engine, jet bomber. It was powered by four Junkers Jumo 004 engines, featured a novel forward-swept wing, and apart fro ...
design started in
1942
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1 – WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in wh ...
.
Design
The shoulder-mounted wings were
swept back 35° and featured a small amount of
anhedral. Six
Junkers Jumo 012
The Junkers Jumo 109-012, known colloquially post-war as Jumo 012, was a turbojet engine under development in Germany during the Second World War. In essence, it was a scaled up version of the Jumo 004 (the Jumo 004 had already reached serial pro ...
jet engines, each of which developed 24.5 kN (5,500 lbf) of thrust, were buried in the
wing root
The wing root is the part of the wing on a fixed-wing aircraft or winged-spaceship that is closest to the fuselage,Peppler, I.L.: ''From The Ground Up'', page 9. Aviation Publishers Co. Limited, Ottawa Ontario, Twenty Seventh Revised Edition, 1996 ...
s. Wind tunnel results showed the advantages of having the engines within the wing, rather than causing drag by being mounted below the wing surfaces. Several wooden mockups were built of the wing sections, in order to find the best way to mount the engines without wasting too much space while at the same time providing maintenance accessibility. The
trailing edge
The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ...
flap
Flap may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film
* Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis''
* Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland''
Biology and he ...
s were designed to be split flaps, and the goal was to make the gearing and operation simple. Because of the high placement of the wings to the
fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...
, an unbroken
bomb bay
The bomb bay or weapons bay on some military aircraft is a compartment to carry bombs, usually in the aircraft's fuselage, with "bomb bay doors" which open at the bottom. The bomb bay doors are opened and the bombs are dropped when over th ...
of 12 m (39 ft 4 in) could be utilized in the center fuselage. The
tailplane
A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplane ...
s were also swept back and the EF 132 had a normal
vertical fin and
rudder
A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...
. An interesting
landing gear
Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...
arrangement was planned, that consisted of a nose wheel, two tandem main wheels beneath the center rear fuselage, and outrigger-type wheels under each outer wing. A fully glazed,
pressurized
{{Wiktionary
Pressurization or pressurisation is the application of pressure in a given situation or environment.
Industrial
Industrial equipment is often maintained at pressures above or below atmospheric.
Atmospheric
This is the process by ...
cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft.
The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...
located in the extreme fuselage nose held a crew of five. Armament consisted of two remotely-controlled twin 20 mm
cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
s (one located aft of the cockpit, the other beneath the fuselage) and a tail barbette containing another pair of 20 mm cannons. All of this defensive armament was remotely controlled from the cockpit, and a bomb load of 4,000–5,000 kg (8,820–11,020 lb) was envisioned to be carried.
Tests and outcome
A windtunnel model was tested in early
1945
1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat.
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
Januar ...
, and a full-scale wooden mockup was also built at the
Dessau
Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the '' Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßlau ...
Junkers facility. The development stage had progressed far when the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
reached the Dessau complex and took possession of the Junkers Ju 287, EF 131 and EF 132 designs and components. In October,
1946
Events January
* January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held.
* January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...
the whole complex and the German engineers were transferred to GOZ No.1 (''Gosoodarstvenny Opytnyy Zavod'', State Experimental Plant), at
Dubna
Dubna ( rus, Дубна́, p=dʊbˈna) is a town in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It has a status of ''naukograd'' (i.e. town of science), being home to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an international nuclear physics research center and one o ...
in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, to continue development of the EF 131 and EF 132. Design work on the EF 132 continued under Dr. Brunolf Baade at OKB-1 (the design bureau attached to GOZ No.1), under order of
Council of Ministers
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
directive No.874-266, an unpowered example was constructed to gather additional data, but only slow progress was made before the project was terminated on 12 June 1948, by CoM directive 2058-805.
[Gordon, Yefim (2004). Early Soviet jet bombers : the 1940s and early 1950s. Hinkley: Midland. .]
Specifications (EF 132, as designed)
See also
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Junkers Ef 132
1940s German bomber aircraft
EF 132
The EF 132 was a planned jet bomber, under development for the ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II. It was the last aircraft project development undertaken by Junkers during the war, and was the culmination of the Ju 287 design started in 1942.
D ...
Proposed World War II military aircraft of Germany
Strategic bombers
World War II jet aircraft of Germany