Fw 190: Kurt Tanks Workhorse ()

There are so many things said and written about the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, a legendary German fighter aircraft, that it’s fair to assume that it’ll take you at least a lifetime to even scratch the surface of the subject. People often say that it was the best, the most influential work by Kurt Tank... But was that actually true? If we speak strictly about engineering and design, the first ever Fw 190 to take to the skies wasn’t really groundbreaking in any way. Yes, in the era dominated by new aircraft with inline engines, Kurt Tank and Rudolf Blaser decided to equip their fighter with a radial engine... But that was around the time when engineers all around the world were warming up to the idea of using radial engines once again: in the summer of 1940, when Germans were testing their Fw 190 prototype, the French introduced the , the Soviets – the I-180, and the US – the iconic Corsair. Maybe the German fighter was built using cutting edge materials? Nope. Aerodynamics? Nothing out of the ordinary; it didn’t have a laminar flow wing, nor was it equipped with interesting new high-lift devices. Granted, the aircraft was known for its extensive use of electrically powered equipment, but Kurt Tank wasn’t the first one to do that: take the Petlyakov VI-100, for example. #WarThunder