Do 335

J

jp

Charter Member
Does anyone know of a good do 335 for fsx? tried the simtech model, but it didn't work. If not, is anyone developing this bird?

Jp
 
Apparently it was pretty fast though. Got to see the real thing at the NASM. Big plane
 
The pictures of the dual propped thing was the only one I could think of relating too. I was right. A strange looking one, but I would imagine fairly quick to get on step.
 
Do 335 was a pretty unique aircraft for it's time. Something that would make for some unique eye candy in FSX would be the pilots ejection seat (Yes it had an ejection seat). Quote from book I have,

"The pilot was provided with an ejector seat and provision was made for jettisoning the upper vertical tail surface and rear airscrew by means of explosive bolts which were actuated with the ejector seat."

I would hate to have been anywhere aft of that thing if the pilot in front of me ejected. Imagine that spinning prop coming at you, or for that matter dropping out of the sky on you :isadizzy: !
 
According to Wikipedia:

"Only one Do 335 survives today. The aircraft was the second preproduction Do 335 A-0, designated A-02, with construction number (Werknummer) 240102, and factory radio code registration, or Stammkennzeichen, of VG+PH. The aircraft was assembled at Dornier's plant in Oberpfaffenhofen (southern Germany) on 16 April 1945. It was captured by Allied forces at the plant on 22 April 1945. The aircraft was test flown from a grass runway at Oberwiesenfeld, near Munich, to Cherbourg, France while escorted by two P-51s. The Do 335 was easily able to out distance the escorting Mustangs and arrived at Cherbourg 45 minutes before the P-51s. VG+PH was one of two Do 335s to be shipped to the United States aboard the Royal Navyescort carrierHMS Reaper, along with other captured German aircraft, to be used for testing and evaluation under a USAAF program called "Operation Sea Horse". One Do 335 (registration FE-1012) went to the USAAF and was tested in early 1946 at Freeman Field, Indiana. Its fate is not recorded.

VG+PH went to the Navy for evaluation and was sent to the Test and Evaluation Center, Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland. Following testing from 1945 to 1948, the aircraft languished in outside storage at Naval Air Station Norfolk. In 1961, it was donated to the Smithsonian's National Air Museum, though it remained in deteriorating condition at Norfolk for several more years before being moved the National Air & Space Museum's storage facility in Suitland, Maryland. In October 1974, VG+PH was returned to the Dornier plant in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany (then building the Alpha Jet) for a complete restoration. In 1975, the aircraft was restored by Dornier employees, many of whom had worked on the airplane originally. They were amazed to find that the explosive charges built into the aircraft to blow off the tail fin and rear propeller in the event of an emergency were still on the aircraft and active 30 years later."
 
My book "The Warplanes of the Third Reich" by William Green, and I quote here:

When US forces overran Dornier's Oberpfaffenhofen factory only 11 Do 335A-1 single-seat fighter-bombers and two D0 335A-12 conversion trainers had been completed, but a further nine A-1s, four A-4s and two A-12s were in final assembly, and components for assemblies for nearly 70 additional aircraft had been completed. Production of the Do 335A-6 night and all-weather fighter had been transferred to the Heinkel factory at Vienna, but despite the high priority allocated to this programme, circumstances prevented the necessary jigs and tools from being assembled.
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mal998 The one that Wikipedia refers to was the secound of 10 Do 335A-0 pre-production fighter-bombers. Book also states that several of the Do-335A-0 aircraft were used by the Erpobungskommando 335 formed for service evaluation purposes.

The A-0, A-1, and A-4 were single seat fighter-bombers.

The A-10 and A-12 were two seat trainers.

Another interesting fact about landing, quote:

All three members of the undercarriage were hydraulically operated, the mainwheels being raised inwards and the nosewheel turning through 90 degrees and retracting backwards. Despite the provision of a tricycle undercarriage, pilots were recommended to land tail-down and using the main wheels and the tail bumper for the initial impact before allowing thw=e nose to drop onto the forward wheel. In the event that a wheels-up landing proved necessary provision was made for jettisoning the lower vertical surfaces.
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A little off the subject but, when I read about Germany and the engineering that went into some of their weapons, I always remember what my father told me about the war. "There are many reasons why we won and they lost, one of them that ranks high is that when german engineers and designers should have been designing simple, they were designing complicted, complicated is hard to produce and even more difficult to maintain. My father was an Electrical Engineer, he always said in war simple and strong = more, and over engineering and complicated = few, in his mind more was a winner everytime in war. He use to tell me if you think I'm wrong look what happened to Custer when he asked for more Indians.


 
mal998 said:


[...]
The aircraft was test flown from a grass runway at Oberwiesenfeld, near Munich, to Cherbourg, France while escorted by two P-51s. The Do 335 was easily able to out distance the escorting Mustangs and arrived at Cherbourg 45 minutes before the P-51s.
[...]
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I have a book that elaborates on that ferry flight to Cherbourg. The german ferry pilot Hans Padell flew the aircraft. The Do335 had the imposed penalty that it had only enough fuel in it to reach Cherbourg on a single engine, so the ferry pilot would have not enough fuel to escape.
Despite running only on a single engine, the "Pfeil" as faster than the P-51s and reached Cherbourg with a considerable head start. Padell used both engines to initiate a high speeed climb and switched off the rear motor for the cruise.
I think the Do-335 displayed in the Udvar-Hazy Center, NASM, mentioned with the pictures above, is exactly this aircraft, VG-PH.


Cheers,
Mark
 
In "Wings of the Luftwaffe", Eric Brown describes his experiences with the Do 335 (he test-flew that two-seater). His conclusions were:

Great visibility from the cockpit
Terrific speed & acceleration
Good climbing capacity
Good stability on all axes
Mechanically unreliable
Poor control harmony
A BIG aircraft, but relatively manouverable for it's size.

A quote:

"To be fair, fighter-versus-fighter combat was never intended to be the Do 335's forte, and it certainly could have given Allied heavy bombers an unpleasant time, with its good overtaking speed, its lethal firepower, and its worthwhile endurance which would have enabled it to fly standing patrols while awaiting bomber formations."

His conclusion was that it would have been a very formidable night fighter, an excellent zerstorer (wreaking havoc among the bomber formations) but not really much use in a dogfight - but then, as a zerstorer, it was never designed as such & it's acceleration would probably have enabled it to get out of trouble relatively easily.

I've always liked the Pfeil, like the Spitfire it's a fine example of something that looks right so probably is right.
 
Italo, that looks like a pretty good alternative :wiggle: until a built-for-FSX model comes along (and it will).

Interesting though how so many people say they want a model of an aircraft that only had between 10 & 20 flying examples (few or none in combat) and yet more prolific types get ignored. I guess "flashy" counts.
 
Interesting though how so many people say they want a model of an aircraft that only had between 10 & 20 flying examples (few or none in combat) and yet more prolific types get ignored. I guess "flashy" counts.
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I think there are maybe three types of pilots in FS: Combat Pilots (CFS1, 2, & 3,) Tuber Pilots (Airliners), and Exotic pilots, those that like the strange and exoitic, push the envelope so to speak. I got my share of Tubers in my hangar, but I'll jump on a Weird and Strange aircraft everytime.
 
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