Germany's Podracer-esque Bomber: Blohm & Voss P 170 

We got free coffee at my work. I doubt that whatever Blohm & Voss offered their employees was legal even at the time...

If Kelly Johnson had designed it, there would be semi-circular winglets outboard of the end nacelles... If Jack Northrop had designed it, the fuselage would be shorter, cockpit forward, and the powerplants reversed to be pushers. If Nikolai Polikarpov had designed it, he would have been ''reassigned'' to the Gulag.

German engineers - "lets see, what kind of bomber platform and we produce that will be really different. Hold my beer while I show you my idea."

Got to admit Blohm and Vost built some fascinating weird planes 👍

There's a game I used to play called Crimson Skies...one of the planes was called a Curtiss-Wright P2 Warhawk. Amazingly similar!

Oh, so that's what inspired that one Crimson Skies plane. I always wondered if it was based on something real, but never thought to look at bombers - the game made it a heavy fighter.

Blohm and Voss had some of the wierdest designed aircraft that never made it past the drawing board. This shnell bomber is certainly no exception. There was another Blohm and Voss design where this plane was piloted from a pod at the wingtip. The second pod at the opposite wingtip served as a gunners station. Not sure how this odd aircraft would have flown. It appears that many of Blohm and Voss's designs were rather unique and ambitious.

Remember that the British Mosquito was basically a "schnellbomber" and it was arguably one of the most successful planes of the entire war. This proves that the problem in this case clearly wasn't in the idea, it was in the execution. A lightweight tri-motor fast bomber could have been a fantastic idea if it had been executed more conventionally, with the two outboard engines mounted mid-wing rather than on the ends and a conventional tail.

One caveat you totally forget to mention and a strong reason TO NOT MAKE the design, is that each frame uses up THREE ENGINES which could be used to build three fighters of which Germany desperately needed to fight the Reich from bomber raids. The three engine design is pretty much why the project would never take off (quite literally) because those resources are too precious to the war effort at that point.

The pc version of Crimson Skies had an inspired version of this. That game and Il2 1946 made me fascinated with prototype/never were planes.

The deHavilland Mosquito was arguably the only successful Schnellbomber.

Something you didn't mention is that plane would have been weird to fly. The initial g forces would be opposite of a normal aircraft as the tail cockpit swings the other way around the CoG. Then It would immediately reverse to the g forces applied to the whole plane. I imagine it would be highly discomforting

The main problem I can see is the weight at the end of the wings. It would most likely result in a roll rate that is measured in minutes not seconds.

Definitely B&V getting deeply into weird designs. What a horror to land with all that fuselage in front of you. I would like to build an RC model to see if it would actually fly.

This aircraft has some beautiful lines; thanks for making this “what-if” video. With regards to vertical fin placement, Burt Rutan’s series of canard wing, pusher prop kit planes (the VariEze and LongEZ, etc) put the vertical surfaces out on the wingtips. Beautiful planes, and, like Blohm & Voss, Rutan designed some groundbreaking asymmetric and unconventional airframes. Now I’m going to find the video of the RC version one of your other viewers mentioned!

More accurately, the Luftwaffe concentrated on shorter range, twin engine aircraft better suited to the roll of tactical bombing in support of land forces. And they may have concluded an unescorted long range bomber would be vulnerable to enemy interceptors as was the case with USAAF bombers before the P-51 came along.

Ah yes, the Warhawk from Crimson Skies.

this is a really cool design i don't think that gets talked about enough. same with some of the other Asymmetrical designs that Blohm und Voss came up with, like the P.163, or their asymmetrical flying boats.

J7W1 Shinden and Curtiss XP-55 Ascender had mid span fin/rudder assemblies, both of which flew.

Dry humor is the best way to handle most of the paper B&V designs. They were bound and determined to be remembered for their contributions to the air war and they got their wish. They were definitely remembered. For a few silly aircraft and a LOT of silly drawings.

Would be interesting to see a simulated view from the cockpit, very unusual. I imagine taxis and take-offs would have been, er, fun.

there was another one with that mid mounted stabilizers. the Kalinin K-12 was a projected tailless bomber that had a semi-flying wing design.

8:11 From what I know, having vertical stabilizers in the middle or front is very bad for side slip stability. Side slip means the plane is sorta "drifting" in the air, like it's moving to its left or right. This naturally happens when the plane rolls, for example. Intuitively, you want the rear of the plane to have more resistance than the back when it's moving sideway, so while slipping the plane has a tendency to turn towards the direction it's moving and stops the slip. Like how cars counter steer in the direction it's moving to stop drifting. Having a large tail in the back creates this sideway resistance due to having a large area on the side. A plane with a mid tail like this will have a hard time pointing towards where it's going

Unusual aircraft designs are one of my favorite topics and the P 170 is certainly one of the most.

Imagine getting into a PIO situation with this thing (Pilot Induced Oscillation). Would have been very odd looking forwards over the central engine, with a fin just to the side of you, and every stick input you put in backwards, or forwards, is magnified, by about 4 times what you are used to. Plus it is the elevator you are closest to so as you pull the stick backwards, expecting the nose to rise, instead it is the tail ie you that actually goes down!

While loosing the war, Germany still won the weirdest Aircraft Design Award 🏆

Crimson Skies took inspiration of this plane with the Warhawk. What a lovely game.

The German designers always made it so easy for today's sci-fi nuts to imagine what aircraft would look like in some strange alternative future that takes place in the past.

Despite your conclusions on the design, there was a r/c model of the aircraft built and flown at an event in New York State a few years back. The name of the builder escapes me at the moment but the plans for it are available on E-Bay. Therefore there was some soundness in the design. In fact there are a number of Bhlom & Voss designs that have been built as r/c models. I personally have 2 sets of plans for the B&V 208 and the B&V 215. You never know what will or won’t work until you try it!

Reminds me of both a Porax 38 and a Bellbabub-22. Let's remember that the Bellbabub actually has a central rudder, so a Star Wars fantasy ship apparently adheres more closely to aerodynamic requirements than this monstrosity did.

Blohm und Voss are my favourite aircraft company, such imagination, such an iconic style.

Very interesting and the models were excellent . Let's hope the model companies realise more of the fascinating Bloom und Voss aircraft in kit form .

Miles developed some atypical wing structures. Like the Miles M.39B Libellula. One feature was a swept wing. Also s forward canard wing. The Italian SAI-Ambrosini SS.4 had an unusual wing setup. And the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender.

It's important to note that many twin engine aircraft of this time had opposing rotating propellers to balance out the torque. Notably the p38 lightning which was an oddball of its day as well and turned out to be one of the most successful aircraft in WW2. Considering the timing of its development coinciding with jet engine development, it would be interesting to know if this design could have been adapted to jet engines and what kind of performance that may have yielded.

Excellent video my friend...... Old Navy Flying Shoe🇺🇸

im so glad to see this channel getting the attention that it deserves =]

I'm guessing pilot vision for take off and landing nixes this design right off the bat?

At last! An aircraft I had no idea about. Thank you for a look at a fascinating idea.

I think the rudder position is thought to be improved by being in the thrust line of the engines, making the rudder more effective for its size.

fantastic looking

In case of failure of one of the wingtip engines, the other wing tip engine can provide enough airflow on the rudder behind it to counteract the turning tendency. Likely, this was not possible if the rudder was placed in the tail.

I made this goofy bastige a couple years ago in Simple Planes! Was really fun to build. I even stayed true to the camo by having it bi-colored. Sadly, I never uploaded it, as depression got the best of me and murdered my motivation/desire to do things I enjoy. Anyways... Nice to see this bird get a video made about it by someone! Well done.👍

Rutan Long EZ has wingtip rudders but many other differences. Thanks for the video. I'd never heard of this A/C design.

I now need Deiselpunk 1930-1940s-esque version of pod racing.

Beautiful design and engineering

Nicely explained --thx rollf

The twin fin design helps with the control issues in case of an engine failure you mentioned. You have a vertical tail in the propwash of the still operable engine, making it more effective.

I've flown "Scale" and "Funfly" Radio control A/C for a long time. One of our best "events" is the Warbird fly In. If you've got a scale Warbird, bring it weather it 's airworthy or not. Blohm & Voss were a favorite among R/C'ers who wanted something different other than a P-51, Spitfire, ME 262 or Corsair. It's one thing that R/C'ers do pretty well and that is to build all the weird, one off or drawing board A/C that never became popular. This A/C is fascinating and though I've never seen a model of one, I'm sure there's one out there somewhere that's flown at least once ! (flying a R/C airplane once is easy, anybody can do that . . flying it twice is the hard part ; )

Plus ground handling would have been a bloody nightmare! 😂😂

The model @6:15 has all 3 props rotating in the same direction, based on the spiral paint on the spinners. :) And yes, the mechanicals of controlling the rudders would have been bad - cables up the fuselage, then out the wings, then back thru the engine nacelles. No fly-by-wire back then.

I like it. It prolly wouldn't ta worked very well, but it sure looks neat! It wasn't mentioned, but it looked to me that from wing tip to wing tip, it seemed exceptionally wide. If I'm correct, that would be another disadvantage. Good show!!

Great video

The vertical stabilizers being so close to the wingtip engines would have the potential for additional control authority via the high speed (if somewhat dirty) air coming from the propellers.

Well done. Subscribed.

Thank you for a great video on yet another German design I had not heard of. I think the reason having the rudders behind the engine pods ls to improve the rudder authority by putting it in the slipstream of the prop just like most single engined aircraft. There is no doubt, as you say, the poor test pilots would have had their hands full if it had been built. It's yaw characteristics would have been interesting. I would hat to have tried to side slip it into a field.

The ruder at the wing tip can help further reduce the wing tip vortices, potentially eliminating them entirely.

Gotta love Herr Doktor Voght! Genius and lunacy. Such a thin line between the two.. 😂😂

This looks like General Grievous's star fighter

Re. Schnellbombers. It is ironic in that it was the British who made the concept work VERY well during WW2 with the DH Mosquito. It is also interesting to note that since WW2 we have moved away from the heavy bomber idea & more toward the schnellbomber concept (aided by various detection avoidance strategies).

I thought of the XB70 for big wing tip stabilizers .. that ship had “tail” fins but those were disproportionately small when compared to later twin tail supersonic fighters (F18 F14 F15 etc)

I had a microlight with the odd tip rudders on it, no tail but a canard at the front as an elevator. It was called a Pterodactyl, the tip rudders basically just induced yaw. It was an odd thing to fly and I was pleased to sell it and get something more conventional.

Wow that's a seriously cool machine

Horten's ia 38 transport design flew with the wingtip rudders. But with the amount of sweepback they were actually quite far back behind the cg

Although it does look like a podracer, it reminds me more of General Grievous' "Soulless One" starfighter based on the Belbullab-22 which were often used either as a heavy fighter or tactical bomber.

Ace and Gary would have loved this!

Your logo is so cool~!

One of the reasons multi-engine bombers tended to have twin vertical stabilizers is that it improves ground handling because the stabilizers are in line with the back thrust from the engines. At high speeds this doesn't matter because the airflow past the fuselage gives plenty of bite to a single vertical stabilizer, but when taxiing the airflow is too slow so having the engine thrust directly hitting the stabilizers helps the plane turn. On the PV170 having a standard central stabilizer would have been a problem because it would have been so far back from the center engine; the two stabilizers behind the outer engines would have been even more effective for ground handling because they were so close to the engines.

What The P38 shared a common configuration with that twin rudder, And it was a success, But they put those twin rudders at the aft end of the aircraft! I bet this thing was real fun to bring in on the landing strip!

Whenever I think I've seen all of German designs there appears new video of another unknown amazing design. The abundance of aeronautics ideas from that era is mind blowing. They had tried and tested everthing available.

The first time I heard of the P.170 was when Squadron listed the 1/72nd scale resin model of it in their monthly catalog just once before 2004 It sold out immediately even though it was expensive. Despite, my doubts that the plane ever flew, I dutifully added it to a book on trimotor airplanes of the world where I documented 355 types aircraft that I was working on at the time. I spent too much time trying to find a photo of the plane and finally decided that it had only ever existed on paper. Based on aircraft like the DeHaviland Mosquito which achieved a higher top speed than contemporary fighters by using multiple Rolls Royce Merlin engines with a very clean aerodynamic design, I concluded since it was meant to use 3 BMW 801D radial engines of 1,860 hp each that the designers speed estimate of 510 moh may have been feasible depending on the load. If not, certainly 470 mph.

I love the far out designs of WW2 the Triebflügel is my favourite by far but this is amazing as well.

The Japanese J7W1 had wingtip mounted rudders as did the McDonnell XF-85 though to a lesser extent since it also had a rear-fuselage mounted vertical stabilizer.

The stress on that wing would be ridiculous!

The B&V aircraft make me think of the outside-of-the-box designs of Burt Rutan.

That's *almost* the coolest looking thing *ever!* I wonder if any model kits of it exist..? 🤔 🍄

Very interesting ! 😮 There are in fact other planes with that wingtip rudder design. -I thought I remembered something akin to the DH Swallow prototype but I only found: Armstrong Whitworth A W 52. (I also believe that Burt Rutan designed something like that). Cheers from Iceland 🇮🇸 -K

The Westland-Hill Pterodactyl V had wingtip fins, but it's hard to tell from photographs whether they had rudders or acted as rudders or were just to increase use resistance.

The vertical rudder positions make sense. Frequently, at the time, rudders were placed directly behind engines. This ensured optimum authority for minimum surface area of rudder. The benefits being lighter weight and minimised drag.

6:28 - Weight distribution - Actually, if most of the plane's weight was in the middle, the wings would need to resist more bending loads than if the weight was more evenly distributed along the span. Putting the engines at the tips would actually help, though not as much as if the engines were halfway between the fuselage and the wingtips. There is the issue of bending loads when the airplane is on the ground, but they've taken care of that by putting landing gear under the fuselage AND in the nacelles at the tip. The thing though, is - where to put the bombs? I suppose I can see them on pylons under the wings, which would help even out weight distribution even more...

The Rutan Long EZ has a similar rudder design but the (single) engine is in the back of the fuselage. The pilot is further forward and the stabilator is a canard type in front of the pilot.this a/c is exceptionally stable and it suggests that the B&V design was not particularly well sorted out.

Pretty cool. The do335 is still my favorite ww2 aerial oddity

Spins would have been brutal, being so far back.

It might well fly but I would think it would be a right swine to land and take off with the pilot's view from the cockpit. Even the Spitfire was noted as being difficult to taxi due to the nose taking up all the forward vision when she was on her tail wheel. Things evolved so quickly in the late '30's - even the Fairy Battle which was a true 'Schnell Bomber' when it first came out being faster than any fighter then in service was disastrously outclassed by the start of the war just a short time later.

There is also the issue that this plane uses 3 very valuable BMW 801's, with not even double the payload of a FW190 fighter-bomber. The FW190 fighter-bombers can also be pressed into fighter roles in a pinch, something this plane cannot do. The Romanians asked for BMW 801's to upgrade their IAR 80's. This excerpt from wikipedia says it all: "But, as always, the Germans were unable to supply the engine as every example coming off the line was needed for installation in a German airframe. Licensed production was likewise out of the question, the engine production was in the midst of being ramped and the demand was so great that not even one set of jigs could be spared. "

Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender also had rudders near the wing tips.

8:24 While not entirely in the same vein, I thought of the Swiss, Boxwinged Ultralight named Sunny by Dieter Schulz. A pair of elevons on the bottom wing with rudders on each side.

The main reason for the fins being behind the two outer engines is two-fold. First.... the propellers will automatically blow air over the fins making them highly efficient. Second... with tose three engines being very big the tail fin would need to be massive - which is negatively affecting storageability of the aircraft (it's already quite big). The P38 had a similar design. The lockheed constellation (and super constellation) had three small fins instead of one big. The stability problems of the SAM-7 are more related to the lack of elevator - which the P170 clearly has. In addition the SAM-7 is a Single Engine Aircraft with the fin not being affected by any force created by the propeller. this affects the manouverability at low speeds in a massive way.

The X-20/Dyna-Soar had vertical stabs and rudders only at the wing tips. While they never flew one (due to project cancellation) there were six airframes under construction at the time of termination. 14,000 hours of wind tunnel design showed that it was stable in subsonic, supersonic, hypersonic, all the way up to Mach 20 (which it did at reentry).

A version of this plane was used in Crimson Skies. An awesome alternate history setting full of concept aircraft and pulp fiction of the early 20th century.

The XP-55 Ascender also had twin rudders mounted out near the wingtips.

I remember there was video game where you could fly something like this. Wacky but fun game

In the early 2000s there was a game called crimson skies , where you where a air pirate using these exact weird prototype aircraft. that never actualy went in to production but you could use in the game .

You mentioned you play Battlefront Games. I still play the Combat Mission series. The original of course. Great games. Wish they would come out with one with the same user inputs, but better graphics (not that they are that bad) and some other more user friendly commands and of course bigger maps. Well thanks for the video! George.

Our Cavalry and Infantry Generals who were in charge of the Army Air Force made the same stupid mistake with the Brewster Buffalo that Corporal Adolph Mede with the 262, they loaded them down till they couldn’t fulfill their intended function. Our Generals insisted on loading the Buffalo with self sealing tanks and armor, which the Zero wasn’t burdened with and Hitler insisted that the 262 was a bomber.

It seems to me that having vertical stabilizers in line with the outboard engines may hrlp increase yaw response and stability, especially in engine-out situations. I'm reminded of the P-38 whicj could be nanagd quite successfully on one engine, although it does have a significant amount of wing area beyond the nacelles. Just a thought.

Fun fact. On YT there is few vids of flying RC models. That means this plane could fly somehow

Blohm & Voss thought outside the box.

Did I miss any comment on what happened to handling with 1 wing engine out while the center and opposite wing engine are still running? How was the center engine rotating?

It really is a thing of beauty. Aside from the death bombs that is.

This design looks like one of the best candidates I've seen for swept forward wings. it would shift the center of gravity to the rear.