Fw 190A-3 inner landing gear doors

[Glunz]

Just building a Fw 190A-3 scale model.

There seems to be an issue with it, concerning inner landing gear doors.

If I got it right, early 190s all had inner gear doors, until bomb/drop tank rack was added to the airframe. Later versions did not have inner gear doors.

Now, please, how did those work ?

Was it like the P51 style, where inner gear doors would open first, then main gear comes down and after that innere gear doors closes again (landing gear in lowered position) ?

Or were inner gear doors always lowered when landing gear was down (109K-4 style) ?

[flakbait]

It worked just like the P-51/Me-262 bay doors. The outer door came down and out followed by the landing gear very soon after. Before the door was fully open the gear was already coming down.

Useless trivia: Did you know the outer doors on the Me-262 weren't powered? They were dropped by a small pin and gravity pulled them open.


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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta 6's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"With all due respect Chaplian, I don't think God wants to hear from me right now.
I'm gonna go out there and remove one of His creations from this universe.
And when I get back I'm gonna drink a bottle of Scotch like it was Chiggy von
Richthofen's blood and celebrate his death."
Col. McQueen, Space: Above and Beyond
 

[funked]

I know that you don't see them in photos of 190's after 1942 or so.  They were either removed in the field or deleted from production.

[Glunz]

Take a look at Faber's captured Fw 190A-3. If I am correct, there is not inner gear door visible.

There are two possible answers to this:

1. The inner gear door opens, lets the gear leg down and closes again. Aircraft with lowered landing gear has inner gear door closed.

OR

2. Faber's A-3 had inner gear doors removed, like later 190 versions.

The drawing in William Green's book shows that A-3 had inner landing gear door. However, it is hard to see if it is lowered or not. Somewhere I read that the reason for losing these doors in late versions were central bomb racks.

[funked]

Yes I think you are right, the ETC 501 kept the doors from opening all the way.

[GRUNHERZ]

Ahh the nasty little inner gear door of FW190, well when it was installed it was up prolly 99% of time when the gear was down- though I have seen photos of both or one of them down. So it would be most correct to leave it up on your (I assume Tamiya 1/48 kit) since its molded in the up position in the wing bottom. As for which 190s had them and when exactly this was stopped I havent got a clue, Ive seen them as far as A6s, but have seen A5s without them, so go figure.