My late father was a signalman on the bridge of an anti aircraft cruiser escorting a convoy to Russia in 1942. A Condor was circling overhead, doubtless radioing the position to any available U-Boats. The Captain told my father “Tell that bloody Hun he’s making me dizzy”!. Dad obliged using an Aldis lamp, whereupon the pilot flashed his lights and turned the plane around flying circles the other way. Much hilarity on the bridge!!
The German Museum of Technology in Berlin is exhibiting the last remaining Fw 200 at the former Tempelhof Airport. The wreck was originally sunk in a norwegian Fjord in 1942 and has been recovered and reconsttucted since 2003. Btw, the museum itself is absolutely worth a visit, not just because of its plane department. It's criminally underrated.
In 1986 I built a Revelle 1/72nd. scale plastic model kit of the FW -200 Condor and I was amazed at the double tires on each left side and right side landing gear 👌
@@maxasaurus3008 It's really interesting - and huge. They have steam locomotives, boats, ship models, early computers, industrial machines, technical consumer goods and many planes (among them an original Ju 52/3m). en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Museum_of_Technology
@@Schlipperschlopper The Bloch 162 first flew June 1940 and was built only one prototype. It was originally developed as a mail plane and was to be developed as bomber. It was faster than the B-17 and the Condor and could have been a significant bomber in the French Airforce but was pressed in the German Luftwaffe...
@@paoloviti6156 Yes question is why did Germany not use the Bloch 162 in the role of the fragile sea condor, it would not have been hard to order further of these very good planes from the french factory or get the blueprints and make copies of their own.
@@Schlipperschlopper it is a good question but I suspect that it would take too long time to copy all the blueprints and reopen the factories and hire the previous skilled labour. Another reason was that the French workers was very reluctant to work for the Germans and if working their production was very slow. Both the He 117 and the Fw 190-A was supposed to be produced also in France but almost nothing came out and the Germans was not happy with them. This is what I understood....
There were also notable foreign users of the Condor: Brazil operated several of the Airliners right up until the 50's when no more spares could be sourced. Denmark had three or four, two of which "escaped" (read - were on British airfields when Denmark was invaded) to the UK and were impressed in the RAF, where they were rather well liked by their new pilots! (Eric 'Winkle' Brown was among them!) One of that pair was scrapped in 1946. IDK about the second.
As the Luftwaffe only had 2 engined medium sized bombers for the Battle of Britain and the later bombing campaigns I always wondered why this wonderful looking plane wasn't used as a bomber against Britain but didn't realise how fragile it was
@@confusedcapitalist2242 he 112 is a figther it was expected to take a beating so thep just like this is unused figther my leader strap a jet engine your wish comes true
@@pinngg6907 Maybe. Water would collect at the lowest point of the fuel tank, so would probably affect two out of the four. Also, I would find it hard to believe any crew would set off without a fuel quality check of both the aircrafts tanks and the bowser.
@@nowthenzen My first thought. In 1938, there were plenty of major players with an interest in bumping off a rival's technologically-advanced aircraft during its world tour.
Very nice video. This complements Bismark's new video on the Condor. He's mostly focused on the strategic side and whether it was effective, this really gets down to the details of the technical development, answering a lot of questions I had after Bismark's video (like what exactly went wrong with converting a civilian airliner to military use). Keep up the fantastic work!
The other poor conversions that come to mind are the use of the Ju-52 and DC-3 as bombers... although I doubt they suffered major structural problems like the Condor...
As someone who endures relentless migraines, all I can say is well done. Never had one last three days. My weather related overnighters are bad enough. All the best. Make sure you find a doc willing to work with you . Different meds work with different people. Three days is brutal.
Yeah. The Flying Boats had a brief ascendancy as the early long distance air liners. One thing about them was that - they were flying _boats_ so there was a comfort factor there for the passengers flying over water - but - the bit about the lack of airfields was right on. You had a lot of the worlds major cities build near water - and thus - accessible by Flying Boats but without much in the way of airfields able to accept large aircraft. WWII did them in though. Because of the War - large airfields were built all over the world to accommodate WWII bombers and transports so that the need to use water as a runway went away and the Flying Boats went away with it. .
Flying boats need considerable compromises that increase costs and reduce range. The hull takes a pounding, especially on landing so has to be built strong. Salt water corrosion is very destructive. All issues that land-based planes don’t have.
Aboard HMS Audacity was pilot Eric “Winkle” Brown, RN. Who shot down a Condor in a frontal attack. Brown went on to be the worlds most accomplished test pilot
How in the world does an Englishman become the worlds most accomplished test pilot??? The most commercially successful British aircraft was the BA148.... Then lessor loser aircraft down the line to the Britan-normand islander... The country is a joke, and so is it's aircraft industry, hence it's test pilots arnt really anything spectacular.
Although the IJN never received a militarized Condor, they eventually got the Nakajima G8N Renzan "Rita", a four-engined design that basically looked like a modified airliner design.
@@allangibson2408 Lol what? The G5N is an original Nakajima design with no resemblance to the DC-4. Neither does the G8N. Neither of them even have the triple tail! Let me guess; you think the Zero is a copy of the Howard Hughes racer as well, don’t you?
@@STTD797 Look up the DC-4E. The later production DC-4 looked nothing like it and was significantly smaller. The prototype DC-4E was sold Japanese Imperial Airlines who diverted it to the Japanese licensee of Douglas who were building DC-3’s - Nakajima in 1939.
@@allangibson2408 A simple Google search will show the G5N doesn’t have a triple tail; it has twin tailfins like a B-24. Nakajima designers took notes from the DC-4E (as every nation would do - taking inspiration from each other’s good designs) but the G5N itself has a different nose, fuselage, tail, engines, cockpit and design role. When literally everything is changed except general layout and auxiliary parts from what it’s “derived” from, at what point does it become no longer a copy and an independent design?
@@STTD797 The G5N copied the wing structure, undercarriage and most of the tail from the DC-4E. Nakajima HAD the DC-4E sitting in their factory hangar. The USAAF got to examine the G5N’s and G8N after WW2 so had a pretty good idea of their construction. Concentration on the triple tail would be like saying the Lancaster wasn’t derived from the Manchester because the Manchester had a triple tail and the Lancaster had a twin tail.
Thanks for the fine film , as for my contribution , as you mentioned the dog fight I thought you might like to know about one of the Condor pilots, his name was Hans Bauer and it was his airoplane that went into the sea , he and surviving crew were picked up by the ship sent to find the liberator crew and do he spent the rest of the war in a prison camp . I got to know Hans through his step daughter as he lived and worked in the UK after the war .
Rex, your videos are very good documentaries. Well researched photos and details, great commentary, great pronounciation of foreign words, interesting planes you are choosing. I am looking forward to new videos. subscribed!
Mums brother Matt was on the SS North Devon when it was sunk by German aircraft in 1941. A young 14 year old Reg Earnshaw was trapped in the wreck and was the only fatality.
The FW200 Condor was a beautiful aircraft, well suited to the task for which it was designed, an airliner. It was modified to be a bomber, but never adequately stressed for the extra weight of armaments, so many broke up when landing. Although it caused many problems to convoys, as a bomber it was not suitable. A complete redesign would have been called for, to use it as a bomber, one cannot design something to do certain service or task, and expect it to be succesful in a different one.
for the sake of the algorithm the 293 was a guided bomb not a missile - its rocket motor was simply there to get it out in front of the aircraft so the operator could clearly see it while guiding its fall to the target
I'm not sure what definition you are giving the word missile... even a rock thrown by a person can be properly described as a "missile"... so a rocket assisted bomb certainly falls under the dictionary definition. If it is guided..as the Hs 293 was..then guided missile seems an entirely appropriate designation.
It was a lovely airliner designed by Kurt Tank and as such it was only design=ed for civilian use with relatively limited growth potential. I have been looking how much it was heavier with more powerful engines, strengthened undercarriage, guns and many other related military equipment but it must have been quite considerable considering the the skin panels was not much thicker despite the improvements as the pilots had to be careful not to stress too much the airframe but despite the precautions it tended to break the back on landing. Thanks for sharing this very interesting video, good job 👍👍👍
I read somewhere that pilots were STRONGLY cautioned against "Bouncing" (Ie touching down hard enough for the plane to skip a few feet into the air, then touch down again) the Condor when landing it. That was an almost guaranteed "Backbreaker"!!
@@brettpeacock9116 you are correct but I read somewhere that it needed continuous maintenance because the rivets kept popping. Not a very enjoyable airplane for the pilot to fly knowing that the airplane will break up anytime...
8:20 And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we lost the war. Just 276 of them were produced, but the main thing is that there are 1 billion versions of them. It's like with the tanks and everything else. ^^
@@Idahoguy10157 just the numbers count in the end, like the Sherman or the T34, not the best but always another to replace the one you just knocked out, very difficult to combat, especially with limited resources.
"OK Rex's hangar. You're doing a video on the Focke Wulf, right?" "correct" "and how do you pronounce the Focke Wulf?" "F**K-a-wolf" "perfect no notes"
Beautiful aircraft, my great-granduncle flew one of these in the war. He was shot down over france in 1944 by the americans I think, but I'm not sure. His pilot watch and his Luger P08 service pistol actually survived and my grandpa has been keeping them ever since then. Crazy to think those things are over 80 years old at this point, they are family treasures for sure.
06:02 Looks like a swastika was either added or heavily retouched on this Condor pic. Kudos for whoever did that, if they were aiming to ensure the aircraft in the picture looked historically authentic. This was a beautiful if surprisingly small 4 engine aircraft with great potential as an airliner which was cut short by the war. Germany had world leading bombers in development until Walther Wever died in 1936. The Ju-89 and Do-19 were purpose built bombers flying in 1937 and the He-177A which followed after they were cancelled was hobbled by ridiculous requirements that this heavy bomber be capable of dive bombing which ultimately led to disastrous radical coupled engines to try and claw back lost performance due to extra bracing as a result. I believe a restored Condor can now be seen in Berlin Tempelhof as a static exhibit. Thanks Rex.
Great job, love the videos! It would be cool if you could cover the He 177 sometime, another less-than-mediocre German bomber with an interesting design!
The 4 nacelles were an attempt to remedy the problem with the DB-606 double engine (2 x DB-301's) with less self-flammable separate engines (like the Manchester/Lancaster). It was recognised as an early solution but reduced the ability to dive-bomb (?) a 177, so was resisted by the RLM (Rech Air Ministry).
The underside of a tail-dragger would be in tension on touchdown. Cut a big hole in the floor for a bomb-bay, and there's not a lot of strength to resist that. Hence the uncommanded folding.
@@brettpeacock9116 No, It should be 330,000 tons. A Liberty Freighter is about 7,200 GRT (10,500 long tons) and a T2 tanker is about 10,000 GRT (15,800 long tons)
I have to say... This aircraft is one of the prettiest Germany made before the war, and honestly, I think it is a tragedy that it didn't get to find it's full potential as an airliner. I think it could have truly found success in that role in the long run, but then war were declared...
Focke Wulf 200 Condor is one of the most beautiful planes ever built. Germany was working on military planes since mid 20's, Lipetsk fighter pilot school in Russia is pretty known, as is production of military planes by Fokker. I recall something in Sweden but can't remember if it was really there.
I hadn't heard they got that much mileage out of the Condor over the Atlantic. What I did hear was it did become a PITA to Britain for a brief period. Ships could find a Condor before the Condor could find ships. The Condors started having catapulted Spitfire company in the middle of the ocean before they saw a ship. Germany looked at deploying in that role any longer as simply wasting an expensive and valuable asset after which they were assigned safer roles. They were high-maintenance and low readiness so there were never many available at any one time, and it was unique for Germany from a range perspective.
The Condor always stood out to me. Maybe it's because the Germans didn't have any other four engined heavy bombers in the same numbers (the closest was the Fw 200's replacement, the Ju 290 with only 65 built)
Good summary. But I don't think you really meant @ 6:49 that them "sinking of over 330 tons of shipping" would have caused Churchill to call them the "scourge of the Atlantic"!
its always funny when you look at the numbers, germany made only around 280 of these things in total, so at best a few dozen patrol variants, while basically any large plane on the allies side numbered in the thousands if not tens of thousands
It's incredible how the Luftwaffe didn't foreshadowed that they would've needed a long range aircraft for sea interdiction, after all either France and UK relied heavy on sea lanes, so, at least for supporting U-Boot, such an aircraft would've been useful. I think that the allies outsmarted the germans also in this case, look how successful where the various Sunderlands, B24s & PBY Catalinas, civilian aircrafts aren't very apt to became bombers, the stress on the hull was too much.
a condor 200 crashed into mt brandon in the south of ireland on a bad night the locals had a great time fighting over the parts in 1940 it was a space ship i saw the bmw engine on display outside a pub in brandon
Our local indian owned convenience store has a metal doorstop, one day, as i passed it, i noticed the chunk of metal said " FAFNIR" cast into it...im surmising its a piece of Condor BMW BRAMO FAFNIR engine....but how it got there, nobody has any idea...unfortunately, i told them what it was in a failed attempt to buy it.
After cracks appearing in the fuselages of the FW200 due to operations on unpaved airstrips, the airplanes were taken back to Bremen for modifications to deal with the issues.
It is on interest to note that a big failing wasn't the plane, it was also navigation skills in the crews that they could not give reliable location reports to allow U Boats to find the convoys they sighted. Sources are Clay Blair and others. Great vid though!
Its shape most likely contributed to designs of American Airliners , just a few years later . Still , a good looking Plane & .....I subbed. TY, for such imformative peek .
ok, that's it! i can't resist anymore! i'm going to laung IL2 and shoot me a couple of these condors with... seafires? or i could go for the B24-condor duel but i'm not nimble enough at manning all posts of gunnery and piloting on the B24.... great video (it should go without saying, really!) and THANK YOu!
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