The Focke Wulf 190 was the creation of Kurt Tank,the aircraft quickly gained the name of 'Butcher Bird'.
The designer was a resourceful German aeronautical engineer who also flew his own creations,he was in charge of the Focke Wulf company from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft used by the Luftwaffe including the Focke Wulf 190,Before Focke Wulf, Tank was employed by the Albatros Flugzeaugwerke which went bankrupt in 1929 after building thousands of first class aircraft , in 1929, the company was liquidated with most of the designers going to Focke Wulf and a few others going to the Arado company in 1931.
Tank then started work on the design of the Focke Wulf FW.44 Steiglitz training biplane, Focke Wulf's first commercially successful design, launched in 1934. This led to growth for the company as the country prepared for war.
The FW 190 Würger (butcher-bird), produced from 1939-1945, was a mainstay of the Luftwaffe,it was a single-seat fighter during World War II. During the war, Tank was honoured for his work. In January 1943, he was named honorary Professor with a chair at the technical school in Braunschweig, in recognition of his services to the development of flight.
In 1944, the
Reichsluftfahrtministerium (German Air Ministry) decided that new fighter aircraft designations must include the chief designer's name. Kurt Tanks new designs were therefore given the prefix Ta. His most notable late-war design was the Ta.152 , a high-altitude interceptor with high aspect ratio wings. The Ta 152 was a continuation of the Fw 190 design, with a increased wingspan and a more capable engine to allow for better high-altitude performance. This
Spezial Höhenjäger culminated with the model Ta 152H which boasted excellent high-altitude performance, using a Junkers Jumo 213E engine, a 2-stage, 3-speed supercharger and the MW 50 methanol-water mixture engine boost system.
At the end of the war, like many other German technicians, he continued his professional life in Latin America . The Argentine Government offered him a job at its aerotechnical institute, the Instituto Aerotécnico in Cordoba. He moved there, like many of his Focke-Wulf co-workers, in 1947.
The Instituto Aerotécnico later became Argentina's military aeroplane factory, the Fábrica Militar de Aviones. There, he designed the Iae Pulqui II based on the Focke Wulf Ta183 design that had reached mock-up stage at the end of the war. It was a state-of-the-art design for its day, but the project was axed in 1953 due to Argentina's financial crisis. When President Juan Peron fell from power in 1955 the ex Focke-Wulf team dispersed, many to the United States.
Tank instead moved to India.There he designed, for Hindustan Aeronautics, the Marut fighter-bomber, the first military aircraft constructed in India. The first prototype flew in 1961; the Marut was retired from active service in 1985.
Tank returned to live in Berlin during the seventies, basing himself in Germany for the rest of his life.So ended a truly remarkable engineering career which went right on into the jet age.
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