Fw 44 WNr ?

[stephen f. polyak]

Comments please on "404" being a werk nummer for a Fw 44J. This airplane may heve been built in 1941.

Thank you,
Steve

[Tony Jones]

Stephen

Focke Wulf built c/n 404 was an Fw 44D, but in the early 1030's

Problem with Fw 44 is that several companies built them and then used c/n batches stating at 1, so a complete "minefield" re c/n for Fw 44. Another company could have built an Fw 44J with the c/n 404

[stephen f. polyak]

Thank you Tony.

As you may have thought, this relates to a data plate. The plate entries are:

Lizenz: Focke-Wulf
Muster: FW44J
W. Nr.: E-404
Baujahr: 1941

The plate is named to: Flugzeugreparaturwerk G.m.b.H. Braunschweig. I assume this airplane underwent a repair there.

Any idea what the 'E' in the W. Nr. could mean?

Best regards,
Steve

[Tom1UK]

Hi Steve

The original W/nr.404 was applied to Focke-Wulf as the manufacturer.

Tony is right and the w/nrs for the Fw 44 are a minefield. No 1 started with Halle (Siebel) and inter-woven with those from AGO and FW But also Bucker built 85 a/c. I have yet to discover what the w/nrs are for Bucker; these have so far eluded me. (I have about 85% complete)

So if anybody can help out there, this would be appreciated.

The data plate you have might not refer to the original 404 (which was built 1935) but could relate to another main-part of the a/c. Clearly 1941 relates to the year of the re-build.

Sorry I could not help you any further.

Regards

Tom Willis

[stephen f. polyak]

Tom,

Thank you for the reply.

During its years of service as a trainer, there's no doubt that '404' experienced some rough handling or worse. Repairs of one sort or another surely occured during that period. And it is not hard to imagine that major structural repair, even re-build, was part of its history. This data plate may be evidence of that.

I will attempt to post a picture of the plate in the future.

Steve

[stephen f. polyak]

I was able to get a picture of the Fw 44 plate mentioned earlier. A paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division removed this one while in Germany. What could the ‘E’ preceding the W. Nr. indicate?

[Norbert Schuchbauer]

Hello,
E could well mean Ersatz (Replacement). Since it is from a Reparaturwerkstatt this particular part could be a replacement part from the original 404. Or the original 404 with replacemt parts from other aircraft.

Regards,

Norbert