FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II

FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II, more commonly known as the Pulqui II, was a jet fighter aircraft developed between the years 1950–53, in Argentina, during the Perón government. Although it never proceeded beyond prototype stage, the Pulqui II program was one of the first generation jet fighters to appear in the postwar years.

Design and development

In the years following World War II, Argentina approached different German scientists and offered them a chance to rebuild their professional lives, not unlike what was done by other countries like France, the United States or the Soviet Union. One of these scientists was arguably the most talented of all German aircraft engineers and designers: Kurt Tank.

Famous for the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 / Ta 152 series of fighters, Tank quickly collected a large team originating from that aircraft's design bureau, and established himself in Córdoba in 1947.

Tank's assignment was to design a far better airplane than the I.Ae. 27 Pulqui I, the first Argentine prototype for a national jet fighter. It had been decided from the beginning that the new fighter would be named the Pulqui II (pulqui meaning "arrow"' in Mapudungun). For that Tank was well prepared for the job. From late 1944, his team had been working on a 2nd generation jet fighter for the Luftwaffe under the designation Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Huckebein. It was an advanced jet, extraordinarily compact in size and aerodynamically clean, sporting a 32° swept wing, and accommodating a Heinkel He S011A jet engine which would bring it to calculated maximum speed of 967 km/h at an altitude of 7000 metres.

Like the MiG-15, being developed in the Soviet Union at the same time, the chosen powerplant for the Pulqui II was the Rolls-Royce Nene II. The Nene was more powerful than the He S011A but required a redesigned new fuselage with a larger cross-section due to its having a centrifugal rather than axial compressor. The resulting product was the IAe.33 Pulqui II.

File:Pulqui engine.jpg

Pulqui II without tail section, showing its Rolls-Royce Nene II turbojet

The high-mounted anhedral wings were swept back 40°, even more than the Ta 183. The long fuselage was circular in section with the engine buried inside near the center of gravity. The airframe was finished off with a graceful swept-back T-shaped tail. The pilot sat in a pressurized cockpit under a teardrop canopy. Armament would include four fuselage-mounted 20 mm cannon. Contrary to the previous Pulqui I designed by Émile Dewoitine, many design elements incorporated into the Pulqui II were new in the fields of aeronautical construction, placing the Argentine aero industry amongst the forefront of aviation technology during those years.

Testing and evaluation

The first flight of the IAe.33 Pulqui II no. 2 took place on 16 June 1950 with Osvaldo Weiss at the controls. The second flight which took place three days later was entrusted to ex-Focke Wulf test pilot Otto Behrens. Kurt Tank also completed a good number of the test flights undertaken during the following weeks. The new aircraft proved relatively successful in some respects, but it displayed severe handling difficulties at various points of the flight envelope - specifically deep stall problems at high angles of attack. Behrens personally characterized the handling characteristics of Pulqui II as, "the worst he had ever experienced as a test pilot" – a fact that was borne out by the fatal crashes of two prototypes during testing, one of which killed Behrens. Lack of operational range was another problem which wasn't solved until the fifth prototype.

Meanwhile, the economic crisis that hit Argentina beginning in 1953 forced the slowing down of armament development programs. The high-cost high-profile Pulqui II project was halted, first temporarily, but the fall of the Peron administration in 1955 meant the project would never recover. The final blow for the Pulqui II project was the availability of cheap combat-proven surplus F-86 Sabres from the end of the Korean War, at a fraction of the cost of the expensive and troubled Argentine aircraft. Kurt Tank moved on to other projects, first trying to return to Germany but then moving on to India. Most of his team ended up leaving Argentina to find work in the United States and other countries. Kurt Tank himself was not to return to his life and work in Germany until the 1970s, where he died in 1983.

Today, the sole Pulqui I and the Pulqui II no. 5 are preserved at the Argentine Air Force’s Museum in Morón.

Specifications

General characteristics

• Crew: one
• Length: 38 ft 4 in (11.68 m)
• Wingspan: 34 ft 9 in (10.6 m)
• Height: 11 ft 6 in (3.5 m)
• Wing area: ft² (25.1 m²)
• Empty weight: 7,937 lb (3,600 kg)
• Loaded weight: 12,125 lb (5,500 kg)
• Powerplant: 1× Rolls-Royce Nene II turbojet, 4,998 lbf (22.23 kN)

Performance

• Maximum speed: 1,050 km/h

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

I.Ae. 33 Pulqui II

Related development

• I.Ae. 27 Pulqui I

Comparable aircraft

• Lavochkin La-15
• FJ Fury
• F-86 Sabre
• Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
• Saab Tunnan

Designation sequence
I.Ae. 27 Pulqui I - IAe.33 Pulqui II Related lists

• List of fighter aircraft

References

Bibliography

• Myhra, David. Focke-Wulf Ta 183 (X Planes of the Third Reich). Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1999. ISBN 978-0764309076. (Book has an extensive section on the IAe 33 Pulqui II project.)

• Article on the 50th anniversary of the "Fabrica Militar de Aviones" - listing all the aircraft developed and manufactured there since 1927, Aerospacio, Buenos Aires, 1977. (in Spanish)

External links

• I. A. 33 PULQUI II
• IAe 33 Pulqui II
• Development and Specifications (in Spanish)

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