Flying Heritage Collection's Fw 190A-5 Arrives

[Bomber_12th]

The FHC's fully restored, original, and airworthy Fw 190A-5, arrived at the museum's Everett, WA facility today for reassembly, following the completion of the aircraft's restoration and flight tests in Arizona. At this time it is the only original Focke Wulf Fw 190 flying in the world, and is completely original throughout, also running currently the only operational BMW 801 engine in the world. It is finished in the same colors/markings as it last had while in service during WWII. The aircraft will be test flown again in the coming days following its reassembly, and will now be on view for the public at the museum. Its first scheduled 'flyday' event is for middle of June.

Here are a series of images shot of the 'play by play' action undertaken today in unloading the aircraft from the shipping trucks, and reassembling it, as posted by FHC on their Facebook page. Final assembly is still taking place.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/fw190_1.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/fw190_2.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/fw190_3.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/fw190_4.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/fw190_5.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/fw190_6.jpg

[Bomber_12th]

And for anyone interested, here is a photo I scanned from a publication about the aircraft's restoration, showing the fully restored cockpit, finished just as it was the day it crashed in 1943.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/Oshkosh%202010/fw190a5_cockpit.jpg

[Bomber_12th]

I don't know who hasn't already seen this video, but as posted on Youtube, this is what this very airframe looked like upon first discovery in 1989-1990. Over years of exposure, the upper-most layer of paint (its last coat applied in service), was quite faded and/or gone completely in areas. How you see the aircraft today is how it originally looked up until the point of it crashing in July 1943. The aircraft was so intact and well preserved over the years, that 80-85% of the skins were re-used in the restoration, as well as about the same percentage of the interior structure. Details down to the varying shades of the same RLM color of the cockpit, from one part to the next, were copied in the restoration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jueDXiuU6aM

[PRB]

That's fantastic. What a beautiful airplane that is, for such a deadly purpose. I'm always amazed at how small and confined the cockpits are on these planes. Do you realize that if you're playing FSX on a 30 inch screen, your VC view is likely to be larger than real life!

[Bomber_12th]

Paul, that is a great observation! I know from my own experiences in developing the P-51B/C/D for FS9/FSX, aspects of the aircraft can really appear larger than life when you are detailing something like a face to a gauge for instance, and it is blown up the size of the computer screen, where in the real aircraft, the same gauge face is smaller in circumference than the palm of my hand. As a result, they always appear small to me when being around them again in person, after months of development time.

[Bomber_12th]

More photos included in this article: http://everett.komonews.com/news/arts-culture/rare-german-plane-comes-home-paine-field/636343

And some videos of it from a test flight while still in Arizona with Steve Hinton at the controls, who has been the project test pilot (a great sounding aircraft!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7MmA06AL5Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTMOu0RvWtk

[Flyboy208]

I have been keeping up with this project as well, via Facebook, Such a pristine Focke Wulf, my personal favourite line of Luftwaffe aircraft ... Mike :salute:

[Wittpilot]

Hey John,

Any idea why they did not fly it up from Arizona? Did they just not want to take the risk since it is probably one of, if not THE rarest flying warbird in the world?

[huub vink]

Thanks for posting the pictures John. Wittpilot, like you already mentioned it is most probably one the rarest warbirds and I can imagine they will be pretty careful with it. Another reason might be the lack of spare part for the engine, which is an original BMW 801. Using the aircraft will cause wear to this engine and there isn't a spare part shop.

Cheers,
Huub

[alain95]

I Hope we will have the chance to see and hear it, on our side of the ocean, with it's brother bird at La Ferté Alais air show... ?
35695

[Bomber_12th]

Witt, I am not sure myself, so I could only speculate, and I agree with the points Huub makes. If it had flown from Arizona to Washington, I don't believe it could have gotten away with not flying over large areas of the country where if the aircraft had to be put down due to any mechanical issue at all, there simply wouldn't be an airport to put it for miles around. Sending it by truck only took a matter of a couple of days I believe, so it was a simple, safe, and relatively quick mode of getting it there. I do imagine they will be closely monitoring the engine's hours and perhaps giving it more inspections per hour run than usual (compared with something like a Merlin, Allison, R-2800, etc.), just because no one else in the world has recent experience with operating a BMW 801, let alone in a flying airframe.

The policies concerning the operations of Flying Heritage Collection aircraft, usually have prevented the aircraft from ever venturing out from the airport for which they are based. There was one exception however, in 2005, when Paul Allen had Steve Hinton fly the FHC P-51D from the then museum base at Arlington, WA, all the way to Oshkosh, WI, for the EAA Airventure airshow that year - performing a demo in the aircraft once or twice, it wasn't on public display nor access however. I would think that the insurance costs that have been established for these aircraft is astronomical. Paul Allen's billion-dollar pockets have allowed these aircraft within the FHC collection to be restored without funding limits...to say that anything needed to bring them right back to how they were when produced, is not prevented because of costs. For instance, I've read that when the FHC P-51D was being restored, a certain type of rivet that they needed was no longer in production or available, so they went to the original manufacturer and simply had them do a new production run...which when given the simple alternative to the matter, is the much more expensive route to go, but the end product is that much more prized and authentic.

There is another amazing warbird headed to the Flying Heritage Collection this summer as well, in the form of a B-25J. The aircraft recently completed restoration at Aero Trader in Chino, CA, and is considered the most accurate and authentically restored B-25J on the planet. Like FHC's P-51 and P-47, no matter where you look in the aircraft, each part is finished exactly as it was when it came off the assembly line in 1944, even down to each individual inspection stamp and worker-graffiti recreated exactly as found. Everything throughout the aircraft is there, as per original, and functions as it originally did. It will be going to the paintshop soon, if it hasn't already, and will be painted in historic markings, with the base being Olive Drab over Grey. Other aircraft around the world which are being restored to airworthy condition for the Flying Heritage Collection include a P-38, an FG-1D Corsair (known combat vet), an original Fw 189, an original Me 262 (with re-engineered original power plants), and a Spanish-built He 111, which is being re-engined with original Jumo engines, just as the original He 111's had.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Bomber_12th/tuesdayinchino015.jpg

[Allen]

Well, Here is Fark.com's Headline for the FW-190.

Source: Seattlepi.com

Tag: Cool

Headline: "If you live in Arizona or Seattle, don't freak out if you see an authentic WWII-era German Focke-Wulf 190 bumping around the neighborhood, it means no harm. Or so the Germans would have us believe."

:icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:

[stansdds]

Sweet!

And it's nice to see another B-25J restored with the original exhaust arrangement and carburetor air intake.

:applause::applause::applause::applause:

[Bomber_12th]

Some excellent new detail photos of the FHC Fw 190A-5 on this forum page:

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40600&start=15

[grunau_baby]

:jawdrop:faboulous restoraration work. How much I would like to hear that engine in action!

Alex

PS: I know it´s rivetcounting, but such details on this perfect work keep nagging me. On the last Link (Forumpages) the fourth pic from above shows the text below "Füllvorschrift" As this detail seems to be replacing a previosly damaged or incomplete original decal, there is a gross german spelling mistake in there: "lösan" must be "lösen". And no, it´s not some old fashioned language quirk. My wife´s a teacher, can´t help it...;-))))

[Bomber_12th]

An interesting detail to pick up on, Alex, thank you for noting that! I wonder what the restorers/museum would have to say about that. Typically, as in the case of the rest of the plane, details likes these were directly copied from the aircraft as found, one-off differences and mistakes and all. A couple of years ago I got to talking with some folks associated with the P-38 "Glacier Girl", and I found out that one of the originally-applied stencils within the gun bay was found to be misspelled. Like everything else in the restoration, this spelling mistake was duplicated in the restored aircraft for authenticity-sake.

[Smashing Time]

Anyone going to South Africa can check out some original tags on an A6

[SADT]

I must say, that FW-190 A-5 cockpit does look alot like Classics hangars FW-190 A-5 Cockpit, so Focke-Wulf must have got it right! ;-D

[grunau_baby]

If it´s an original spelling mistake (which I think might not be Impossible with late war aircraft who were put out in a hurry and in lack of propper productionscemes), it should stay there off course, but languagewise it makes my toes all curl up... It is just so wrong;-)

Alex