The Oberschleißheim Airfield (EDNX) was once an old second world war
airbase barely 11 km north of Munich, Germany.
Around the Battle of Britain, the Oberschleißheim
Airfield must have scrambled
Messerschmitt Me109s and Heinkel He111s.
The airfield is steeped in history. Next to it is a Luftwaffe officer's club with a sign above a certain table where
the
WW1 ace, Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) used to sip his
beer.The hangar buildings have been remodelled to house the museum.
Located at Effnerstraße 18, 85764 Oberschleißheim, [48.246004N, 11.557143E].
The Königlich-Bayerische Fliegertruppen (Royal
Bavarian Flying Corps) constructed this airfield and its historic
buildings between 1912 and 1919.
Its historic maintenance hangar was restored and enlarged to
accommodate the Deutsches Museum's growing aviation collections.
At extreme left in the image above, is parked an Antonov An-2TD:
Транспортно-Десантные (Transportno-Desantnye) - cargo and
paratrooper
biplane.
About 15,000 examples of the An-2 (NATO codename: Colt) have been built
in the erstwhile USSR, Poland and China.
Bearing registration, D-FWJM (c/n 1G166-38), this
aircraft was license built by Polskie Zakłady Lotnicze (Polish
Aviation Works) in Mielec, Poland.
She belongs to Paul and Sascha Hoffmann, Freunde der Antonov
e.V.
With 12 seats, static line attachment cables and drop
signalling
lights, this is the paratrooper version of the An-2.
Her single 9-cyl. 30-litre Швецов Aш-62 (Shvetsov
ASh-62) radial engine cranks out approx. 1000 hp to heft the
aircraft's permissible total
weight of 5½ tons airborne
with a short 100m dash down a grass, gravel
or unpaved surface.
The radial engine was developed from the Wright R-1820 Cyclone.
The Antonov An-2 is the world's biggest single-engine biplane.
With approx. two acres. of exhibition space, the museum has over 50 aircraft, helicopters, gliders and many on-board and ground equipment.
First we saw some very well made models of aircraft. Like this
Lockheed
Super Constellation D-ALEM.
ex-RAF, ex-Luftwaffe, Dakota passenger transport. reg.:14+01, c/n:26989.
This C-47 specimen was captured from the RAF during World War II. It
served the Luftwaffe as a military transport until 1967. For about nine
years thereafter it served as a test bed for military ATC and radio nav
equipment.
That's how it got the orange paint on the nose, tail, engine nacelles
and rings on the body.
It was retired in
1976.
|
The port engine
behind me is one of its two Pratt & Whitney R-1830-90 14-cylinder 1200 bhp twin-row air-cooled radial engines. Each of the cylinders displaced 2.1 litres, making for a total swept volume of 31 litres per engine. The R-1830 is the most produced aircraft engine, with the characteristic (no more heard) drone, so familiar to me and my contemporaries since we were little. The engine powered at least 26 different types of aircraft including Beaufort, Liberator and Wellington bombers, flying boats like Catalinas and Sunderlands and Grumman Wildcats. |
This Heinkel He-111 being restored to airworthiness, was for me, the
pièce de résistance of the airfield museum !
Took this photo in the hangar where it was being restored.
While the old Heinkels in WW2 were powered by Junkers Jumo 211 liquid-cooled inverted V-12 engines [1,340 shp @ 2,600 rpm], some later examples built in Spain had Rolls-Royce Merlins.
The Heinkel He 111 was one of World War II’s best known and most widely used German bombers. Introduced in early 1936, as a ten-passenger commercial airliner, the Luftwaffe used it as a fast medium bomber. Technologically advanced for its time, the He 111 was faster than most single engine fighters.
In 1941, the Spanish government Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA)
acquired a license to build the airplane at its plant in Tablada, Spain.
They built two hundred He 111H-16s starting in 1945, powered with
British Rolls-Royce Merlin 500-29 liquid cooled V12 engines developing
1,577 shp ea.
The old CASA 2111s continued in service with the Spanish Air Force as
transports until the late 1960s.
The Commemorative Air Force (CAF), USA is a Midland, TX based non profit club dedicated to preserving and showing historical aircraft at North American airshows. In summer 2003 the last flyable He 111 (Spanish built CASA 2.111D) crashed in Cheyenne, Wyoming, enroute to the Montana Airfest 2003, killing both crew. It was the last flyable aircraft of its type.
The H&W had no clutch. Power was delivered to the rear
wheel via steam-locomotive style pushrods linked directly to the
engine's pistons.
The solid rear wheel was a flywheel cum crankshaft. Two
large rubber straps, one on either side of the motorcycle, generated
the force to return the pushrods.
The
engine was water-cooled. The water tank was in the rear
mudguard. The engine had a surface carburettor and
hot tube
ignition.