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1:48th scale
Reviewed by Dave Coward
Our thanks to The Airbrush Company Ltd for supplying our review sample. Get this impressive kit here now at: www.airbrushes.com
Background
The Focke-Wulf Fw 189 Uhu (“Eagle Owl”) was a German twin-engine, twin-boom, three-seat tactical reconnaissance and army cooperation aircraft. It first flew in 1938 (Fw 189 V1), entered service in 1940, and was produced until mid-1944.
In 1937, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) issued a specification for a short-range, three-seat reconnaissance aircraft with a good all-round view to support the German army in the field, replacing the Henschel Hs 126, which had just entered service. A power of about 850-900 hp (630-670 kW) was specified. The specification was issued to Arado and Focke-Wulf. Arado’s design, the Ar 198, which was initially the preferred option, was a relatively conventional single-engined high wing monoplane with a glazed gondola under the fuselage. Focke-Wulf’s chief designer Kurt Tank design, the Focke-Wulf Fw 189 was a twin-boom design, powered by two Argus As 410 engines rather than the expected single engine and a central crew gondola, while Blohm & Voss proposed as a private venture something even more radical: chief designer Dr. Richard Vogt’s unique asymmetric BV 141. Orders were placed for three prototypes each of the Arado and Focke-Wulf designs in April 1937.
Possibly the best reconnaissance aircraft to operate during World War II, the Fw 189 was produced in large numbers, at the Focke-Wulf factory in Bremen, at the Bordeaux-Merignac aircraft factory (now the Dassault Mirage plant) in occupied France, then in the Aero Vodochody aircraft factory in Prague, occupied Czechoslovakia. Total production was 864 aircraft of all variants.
