Egon Mayer's interesting Fw 190 A-4

[Pawel Burchard]

I found two photos of this rare bird, one is posted by member of IPMS Germany, second one I do not know.

http://lolas.pl/pablo/mayer/I57.jpg
http://lolas.pl/pablo/mayer/Mayer_Bau_03.jpg

Looks like it has enlarged supercharger intakes, anyone knows more about this particular machine?

regards,
Pawel

[Tony Kambic]

I believe those are tropical filters on the supercharger intakes.

[Pawel Burchard]

Nope, I do not think so, they would have been of little use in France
Instalation is similar to that fitted to U7 machines and yet a bit different as the open inlets are shorter

[John Beaman]

You are correct Pawel. It is the experimental U7, apparently an attempt to boost the ram air effect in the supercharger of the Fw 190. Several were distributed around to well known pilots for their evaluation. The length of the intakes did vary, part of the experiment, I suppose. It was, apparently not successful as it was never put into production.

[Pawel Burchard]

I was only aware of Graf's colourful Fw 190 A/U7, it has different type of open inlets, and although sometimes identified as an A-5, it may well be A-4 looking on one known to me blurry photo (from pwm.org.pl)

http://lolas.pl/pablo/mayer/oneua7.jpg

Well documented (and in similar paint style) Graf's Fw 190 A-5 does not have the inlets and is plain A-5.

regards,
Pawel

[John Beaman]

It is the same machine with the different configurations of the U7 intakes and w/o, and a different paint scheme. This has been confirmed by WNr.

[Pawel Burchard]

There are some photographs here -
http://pwm.org.pl/viewtopic.php?t=2071

and there are clearly two machines W.Nr. 2594 (plain A-5) and 634 (A-4 with inlets?)

regards,
Pawel

[Ruy Horta]

I wouldn't dismiss this feature just because it didn't enter production, iirc it was more a question of being surpassed by other developments, just like the B-model.

I've got a nice little book(let) in German dealing with the subject, but the title escaped me for the moment. I'll try and post it tomorrow if someone else hasn't done so by then.

[Pawel Burchard]

Just to end this thread... there is some explanation in Rodeike's Fw 190 book, it seems that external inlets where more widespread on Fw 190 A-4s od Lfl. 3 in spring 1943 than I thought, and there were at least two ('production') variants, one seem to be asymetrical (flattened inlet on one side of the a/c and oval one on the other)

p.