Pulqui II

[Colin Leighfield]

I thought I'd post this because of Pete Crosby"s very interesting build thread "Thought I'd post a Focke Wulf Ta183'', perhaps it will interest those who haven't seen it before. Although it was never completed and flown, the Ta183 was the basis of the design of the MIG 15, which the Russians based on captured Gertman data. Some of you will know that post-war, the famous Focke Wulf designer Kurt Tank went to Argentina, as did many other Germans. There he was commissioned to design a modern jet fighter, which he did for Fabrica Militar de Aviones. It was called the Pulqui II and was based on his Ta183, the main change being to the design of the fuselage to accomodate the Rolls Royce Nene, which was much larger and more powerful than the originally planned German axial flow engine.From these pictures you can see the strong resemblance to both the Ta183 and the MIG15. It turned out to have many aerodynamic problems, which would also have perhaps been true of the Ta183 if it had ever flown. Many years were spent and problems were never completely resolved before the project was abandoned. However it might be interesting to those who haven't seen it before and I haven't seen it modelled, although someone might have done it. There was a Pulqui I before it, a mediocre straight winged jet designed by the Frenchman Emile Dewoitine who fled France post-war because of his known Nazi sympathies. That was a failure which went nowhere.