The Focke-Wulf Fw 56 ''Stösser'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

: ''

goshawk Goshawk may refer to several species of birds of prey, mainly in the genus ''Accipiter'': * Northern goshawk, ''Accipiter gentilis'', often referred to simply as the goshawk, since it is the only goshawk found in much of its range (in Europe and N ...

'') was a single-engine, parasol

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

advanced trainer, built in the 1930s in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Development

The Fw 56 was developed, in accordance with a request by the

Reich Air Ministry The Ministry of Aviation (german: Reichsluftfahrtministerium, abbreviated RLM) was a government department during the period of Nazi Germany (1933–45). It is also the original name of the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus building on the Wilhelmstrasse ...

for an advanced fighter trainer, by

Kurt Tank Kurt Waldemar Tank (24 February 1898 – 5 June 1983) was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot who led the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931 to 1945. He was responsible for the creation of several important Luftwaffe aircraft of ...

, chief engineer with Focke-Wulf. It was also considered for possible use as a home defence fighter. The first

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

flew for the first time in November 1933. A second prototype had some modifications made 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 ...

, and metal rather than wooden wings for flight testing. The third prototype, which flew in February 1934, reverted to the wooden wing and satisfied the technical designers. After comparison flights in 1935 against its two competitors - the Arado Ar 76 and the Heinkel He 74 - the Air Ministry ordered production to begin. About 1,000 aircraft were built, mostly used by Germany, though numbers were used by Austria and Hungary. A few were sold for private use, for instance to

Gerd Achgelis Gerd Achgelis (16 July 1908 – 18 May 1991) was a German aviator, test pilot, and pioneer in the development of helicopters. Biography Achgelis was born in Golzwarden in Oldenburg, and after an apprenticeship as an electrician, began working ...

, who later founded the

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

company

Focke-Achgelis Focke-Achgelis & Co. G.m.b.H. was a German helicopter company founded in 1937 by Henrich Focke and Gerd Achgelis. History Henrich Focke was ousted in 1936 from the Focke-Wulf company, which he had cofounded in 1924, due to shareholder pressure. ...

with

Henrich Focke Henrich Focke (8 October 1890 – 25 February 1979) was a German aviation pioneer from Bremen and also a co-founder of the Focke-Wulf company. He is best known as the inventor of the Fw 61, the first successful German helicopter. Biograp ...

Ernst Udet Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 November 1941) was a German pilot during World War I and a ''Luftwaffe'' Colonel-General (''Generaloberst'') during World War II. Udet joined the Imperial German Air Service at the age of 19, and eventually ...

, an advocate of the use of

dive bomber A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to keep visual contact througho ...

s, demonstrated the second prototype - Fw 56 ''V2'' - in this role, leading to Luftwaffe development of dive bombers.

Design

The Fw 56 was a parasol-wing monoplane aircraft with a fuselage of steel tube construction, clad in metal at the front, and canvas elsewhere. The wing was of wood, covered mostly in

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

, while 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. ...

was fabric-covered. The fixed conventional

undercarriage Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include: *The landing gear of an aircraft. *The ch ...

consisted of two cantilever main legs and a tailskid. The aircraft was powered by an air-cooled Argus inline engine and intended as a single-seat advanced trainer for the fledgling pilot trainee to transition to from the Bucher primary trainer. In addition, for its secondary role as an emergency fighter as well as aiding aspiring fighter pilot trainees in conversion, it was fitted with 2 fixed cowl-mounted 7.9mm MG17 machine guns as well as a removable ventral rack for 3 10kg bombs (inert practice bombs or, in the event, light antipersonnel fragmentation bombs) The Fw 56 was highly popular with pilots, due to its aerobatic capabilities and fine handling.

Variants

* Fw 56a : First prototype. * Fw 56 V2 : Second prototype. * Fw 56 V3 : Third prototype. * Fw 56A-0 : Three preproduction aircraft. * Fw 56A-1 : Single-seat advanced trainer. Main production version.

Operators

; *

Austrian Air Force (1927-1938) The Austrian Air Force (german: Österreichische Luftstreitkräfte, , Austrian Air Combat Force) is a component part of the Austrian Armed Forces. History The Austrian Air Force in its current form was created in May 1955 by the victorious Al ...

; * Bolivian Air Force (1936 ex D-IBAE) ; *

Bulgarian Air Force The Bulgarian Air Force ( bg, Военновъздушни сили, Voennovazdushni sili) is one of the three branches of the Military of Bulgaria, the other two being the Bulgarian Navy and Bulgarian land forces. Its mission is to guard and p ...

; *

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 ...

; *

Royal Hungarian Air Force The Hungarian Air Force ( hu, Magyar Légierő), is the air force branch of the Hungarian Defence Forces. The task of the current Hungarian Air Force is primarily defensive purposes. The flying units of the air force are organised into a single ...

; *

Royal Netherlands Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = ''Parade March of the Royal Netherlands Air Force'' , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment ...

; *

Royal Romanian Air Force The Air Force branch of the Royal Romanian forces in World War II was officially named the (ARR), or the Romanian Royal Aeronautics, though it is more commonly referred to in English histories as the (Royal Romanian Air Force, FARR), or simply ( ...

; *

Spanish Republican Air Force The Spanish Republican Air Force was the air arm of the Armed Forces of the Second Spanish Republic, the legally established government of Spain between 1931 and 1939. Initially divided into two branches: Military Aeronautics ('' Aeronáutica M ...

, one of the few German-made planes in the loyalist air force. ; *

Spanish Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = Spanish Air and Space Force Anthem , mascot = , anniversaries = 10 December , equipment ...

Specifications (Fw 56A-1)

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20080401114708/http://aviationtrivia.info/Focke-Wulf-FW-56-Stosser.php * http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/fw56.html * https://web.archive.org/web/20061016135052/http://www.luftfahrtmuseum.com/htmi/itf/fw56.htm {{Authority control Fw 056 Single-engined tractor aircraft Parasol-wing aircraft 1930s German military trainer aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1933