The Ingenious Ju-88

[SkyPup]

Really interesting to browse this:

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1940/1940%20-%203422.html

[Madfish]

Good read. It was an awesome plane indeed. Funny to see how little they knew at the time - much was just guessing around after examining wrecks and captured planes. It really shows how much our knowledge today affects flight sim realism; now that we know many details and weaknesses, which wasn't the case back in the days.

Anyways, here's what they got wrong

"Another device not seen on British aircraft, and one which it is hoped we shall never see, is the pedal alongside the control column marked ''Ruder Bremse '' (control surface brake). By depressing this with his foot the pilot can put a brake on the movement of all control surfaces by hydraulic means. Only one explanation seems possible for this—that it is to damp out incipient flutter.

If this is correct, then the whole nutter problem has been approached from the wrong way. For no aeroplane can be considered a flying machine unless all flutter tendencies are eliminated below a certain placarded speed. Then one simply leaves it to the pilot not to exceed this speed. But to provide him with a brake to guard against flutter in its early stages—it will be useless if the flutter has really started—shows a lack of confidence in the design, and must be somewhat depressing to the pilot.

This may be one of the improvisations which were developed when the Ju 88 was redesigned for dive-bombing work. Possibly it was found that such work involved it in diving speeds above its safe flutter speed. (Being unable to trace out the piping on the first very much damaged Ju 88, this brake pedal was wrongly said to be a parking brake in the earlier article. We take this opportunity of correcting the error.) Our drawing shows the aileron mass balance in the wing, and the corresponding photograph shows also the hydraulic piping leading to the mass balance for the application of the brake."

I highlighted a few points. Ironically the earlier article they mentioned was right. The "Ruderbremse" WAS a parking brake - just not for the wheels but actually for the control surfaces.

I quote the original Ju 88 A1 manual here:

']Zum vorübergehenden Feststellen der Ruder im Stand sind Ruderbremsen vorhanden [...]

Da die Ruderbremsen nur beschränkte Zeit bremsen, müssen bei längerem Abstellen des Flugzeuges die bei der Truppe vorgeschriebenen Feststellvorrichtungen an die Ruder angebracht und die Ruderbremsen gelöst werden.

And since I know you guys speak German fluently and only want to check if mine is that good as well I'll just add a translation:

']Control surface brakes are present to temporarily lock the control surfaces while parking [...]

The locking devices, prescribed for the troops, must be attached and the control surface brakes have to be disengaged for prolonged parking since the control surface brakes brake only for a limited time.

So it's just a temporary locking mechanism after all...

I found a version of the manual online on a russian server but it was taken from deutscheluftwaffe.de so I'm not sure about the copyright issues...

There could be more in the article that's not exactly accurate but the flutter thing was just too much and I had to correct it.

[SkyPup]

Thanks for that info, Madfish. The inflight "anti-flutter lock" seemed kind of hokey. The Brits did a thorough analysis of this aircraft but obviously mis-interpreted a few things. Somewhere I read of the Ju-88 having a rear-facing "flamethrower" for defense, but that was apparently the fuel dump mechanism.