Did a little research about MW50 in the FW190A-Series

[Naudet]

And from what i read there was only one variant that ever used it operational.

The FW190A4 Jabo-version.

And why it was the only one to use it, is very simple.

MW50 boost performance only up to 5000-6000 Meters, above that it is just additional weight that brings no advantages.

The FW190A4 Jabos flew to England in low level raids, and they got the MW50 installation cause it gave them a very important edge in low alt performance that they needed to get in and out alive.

Standard fighter FW190A4 did NOT use it, cause for there usual missions MW50 was though to be of no use, as most flying took place at higher alts and over friendly territory.

And with the FW190A4 Jabo it as found that MW50 had a disatrous effect on spark plug life. In the Jabos this was accepted but for normal fighter operations it was considered waste.

After that all other A-Series aircraft never again used MW50, but GM-1 was build into later series to boost high alt performance against the USAAF B17 and B24.

So the request to put MW50 in the A5 or A8 is just wrong, cause there were no A5 or A8 with it.

[RRAM]

Hi Naudet.

Nice info! where does it come from?.

Also, is there any number on the performances achieved by those 190s?

[Naudet]

It's a book from the 1970s. It list's all FW190A together with there engine output.

It's called "Focke Wulf 190 described Part 1" from Kookaburra Technical Publications.

And if i remember right, the FW190A4 Jabo managed 418 mph @18K in clean config using MW50.

[Vermillion]

Naudet, do you have a ISBN number?

[Naudet]

Sorry Verm, dunno why but the book has no ISBN number.

[gatt]

Verm, you "dweeb bookfinder" Check at http://www.abebooks.com

[funkedup]

ABE is easy mode.  

[HoHun]

Hi Naudet,

>The FW190A4 Jabos flew to England in low level raids, and they got the MW50 installation cause it gave them a very important edge in low alt performance that they needed to get in and out alive.

This seems to make sense, especially considering the (exaggerated) priority the Luftwaffe gave fighter bombers at that time.

Does your book give any power or boost figures for the Fw 190A-4/MW50?

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Naudet]

The book is text only.

But the SL power output for the A4 with MW50 is given as 2100PS.

And as with other MW50 installtions this would also mean a bit more than 20% increase in poweroutput, as the A4s BMW801 is rated at 1700PS.

>This seems to make sense, especially considering the
>(exaggerated) priority the Luftwaffe gave fighter bombers at
>that time.

I fully agree with that statement. In the time this was introduced the "revenge raids" of JABOs to the British Island had a higher priority than airdefense over western europe.

It is also noticeable that the MW50 installation was not intended for the eastern front. LW considered the FW190 "standard" performance good enough to outfly anything the russians could put up at that time.

With this information at hand, and looking at the length and losses of the JABO stationed in france i would assume that there was only a small production batch of FW190A4/MW50, that didnt exceed 120-150 examples. But that is pure speculation at the moment.

[HoHun]

Hi Naudet,

>But the SL power output for the A4 with MW50 is given as 2100PS.

That's a lot of power, though it seems in line with the power increases gained in the DB605 series of engines.

I'd estimate the C3 injection of the Fw 190A-8 with its boost increase to yield about 1850 HP at sea level, and MW50 should provide more power than that. How much more, I don't know :-)

If the 2100 HP is realistic (I've read about the crankshaft of the BMW801 needing strengthening to transfer more than 2000 HP), the Fw 190A-4 could be expected to achieve about 580 km/h at sea level, which is very respectable.

At 2000 HP, it would be about 570 km/h, which still is pretty fast.

The 1850 HP of the C3 injection would give about 557 km/h, compared to the normal 547 km/h at 1750 HP (which is the speed figure from the US report on the A-5 I used as a basis for my estimates).

That's highly interesting information you posted, Naudet! :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Naudet]

Henning,

i found a second source referring to the MW50 in the A4. It's "Profile Publications FW190A".

Also i reread the other source, and it seems that the FW190A4 fitted with WGR21 also had MW50 installation to overcome performance decrease by the heavy weight WGR21s.

And as the base engine power of the BMW801 of the A4 series is given as 1800HP (not 1700HP) i find 2100HP with MW50 boost is very likely to be correct.

Just look at the MW50 power increase with the JUMO213.
1750PS to 2130PS.

In the DB605series this is rougly the same relative power increase if memory deserves right, but i have no charts at hand for those engines.

[MANDOBLE]

Originally posted by Naudet
at that time.

But not later, when every 190 variant was remarkably outperformed by russian yaks and Las. If they had a way to give 2100HP power at lo level to the 190s, why not to use the device at eastern front where most of the fights were just below 6000m?
Take into consideration that these 190s were fully loaded with weapons (bombs, rockets and whatever else) and were fighting at very low lever against overhelming quantities of enemy tanks and planes. We have the numbers of a clean configuration 190A4 at sea level, but what about a 190F8 with one 500Kg bomb plus rockets? MW50 would have been mandatory for all of them.

[Naudet]

Mandoble, i don't doubt that it would have made sense to put MW50 in them.

But they DIDNOT install it.

The A4 is the only one that ever had it, and even in this series it was just build into very few examples that were used for a very specialized task.
I think for all other operational use, the drawbacks of MW50 boosted BMW801 were considered higher than the advantages and so they did invent other boost methods like C3 injection that had less disatrous effects on the engine.

[MANDOBLE]

Originally posted by Naudet
But they DIDNOT install it.

Just remember a day like this one but one year ago, when all were convinced that only few prototypes of 190A8 used MW50. Today we have these "prototypes" plus some operational units of 190A4, plus the statements of Oleg's forums indicating that MW50 was normally used in the east front. The only fact is the lack of documents, or, at least, public documents, and the fact that most of the books are based on personal and limited experiences (for example, west front pilots with little knowledge of the east front or just the contrary). Step by step the info is comming out. Perhaps in few months we may have some definitive testament about the generalized usage of MW50 instead of the useless small fuel tank in the A8 series in the east front, and the evidence that hi alt CAP 190A8 had this tank simply removed most of the times.

[-ik-]

ummmm... Question!

Knowing that lw boost systems were often not installed until after delivery to the unit, and knowing that records of these installations are scarce at best, isn't it overpresumptuous to say that no later FW190A used MW50?

A better research method would be to look at photographs of later FW 190A's and observe what sort of fuel triangle they had.  "96" or "c3" would indicate mw50 installation.