[Graham Boak]

Ruy: your comments apply specifically to the V1. The adaptability or not to any specific weapon would apply to the basic design, rather than the specific compromises of a testbed.

The forward sweep offers theoretical aerodynamic advantages, though I have long forgotten what they might be. However, it does bring with it considerable aero-structural problems. When a wing experiences load, it not only bends but twists. With a swept-back wing, this acts to reduce the aerodynamic forces at the expense of lift, but the forward-swept tip this bending increases the forces. This means that a forward swept wing design requires a heavier structure, which counteracts and indeed exceeds the theoretical benefits of the configuration.

The Soviets seem to have grasped this early on, and their swept-wing designs are aft-swept. Baade was released to work in East Germany on his ideas, resulting in an early but unsuccessful jet airliner. The MBB Hansajet is the only production aircraft to feature fsw, here cleverly using the aft centre-section to improve the capacity of the passenger cabin. However, the design was uncompetitive in the international market - not necessarily because of the fsw.

Recent advances in carbon-fibre structures led to the idea of tailoring layers of fibre within the structure to control the bending and twist, so that the aerodynamic advances could be achieved at no (or lower) weight penalty. Hence the X-29 and the Berkut. The X-29 trials failed to deliver the expected benefit: who knows what the Berkut proved? (Other than that the Russians can make gloriously exciting if pointless devices? Rather like late war Germany?)

Please excuse digression. The Ju 287 was clearly an aircraft well ahead of its time (which is not intended as a compliment), and the designers would have been better employed on something rather more conventional.