Glide of a Ju88

[gilles collaveri]

Dear all

we will investigate soon a crash site of a Ju88 that was abandonned by its crew and which glided, left on its own.
This JU88 finally crashed empty.

Thus my question :

how long (how many KM) will a JU88 glide, with no fuel, from an altitude of 5 000 m., in a standard environment ?

Thanks

Gilles

[Chris Goss]

I would say a load of variables need to be factored in such as wind direction and speed, temperature, AUW and whether props were feathered. That said there should be guidance in any Ju 88 manual

[gilles collaveri]

True fact, Chris

- Speed : the speed when a crew bail out (rather low speed..)

- prop not feathered but its is likely that the crew bailed out when engines still running (although the gauge says "zero", some fuel was remaining in the tanks)

- wind : I investigate with French meteorologists now

- AUW Gross weight : aircraft rather light, as all fuel was used


So, who here has a Ju88 flight manual ?

Thanks

Gilles

[Chris Goss]

Also if they had jettisoned the cabin roof there would be more drag?

[gilles collaveri]

yes, but I would say it is marginal.

At that stage, I just wonder if a Ju88 abandonned at, say 5 000 meters, would fly 50KM, 100km, 150 km 200 Km...

[Chris Goss]

Don't forget when you find it I would like a bit of it! I assume they would trim the plane for ease of baling out but what about putting it on auto pilot? My suspicion no power it would descend quickly as speed bled off

[ArtieBob]

I have a translation copy of Ju 88 A-4 Bed.-Vorschr.-Fl, I looked through it and The only reference to glide ratio I could find was 1:8 with engines idling dirty (i.e. full flaps and landing gear down). That is little help for determining glide ratio clean. Having flown in a few twins of that vintage just a little (right hand seat only), my unscientific wild ass guess would be less than 10:1. But there are a lot of variables with the aircraft at 5000m, particularly if the engines were still running. IIRC, there was one WWII instance, after crew bailing out, traveling across more than one country and some water.


ArtieBob

[Tim O.]

On the night of 3-4 March 1945, several Ju 88G-6 aircraft returning from Operation Gisela were abandoned by their crews in thick cloud over Germany. Research by Rod Mackenzie suggests that at least three of these aircraft flew on for over 100 kilometres after being abandoned, one crashing in German-held territory and two in Allied territory.