Hobby Master Archive

Hobby Master 1/48 Air Power Series HA7407 FW-190 A7 W.Nr380394 “Doppelreiter”

1/48 scale pre-finished Die-cast metal with a minimum of plastic. Professionally painted. All markings pad applied for superb results. Cockpit slides open. Comes with a pilot that can be removed. Comes with display stand. Can be displayed with landing gear up or down.

In 1937 even though the Me-109 was a very capable fighter the Reichsluftfahrtministeriun (RLM) or Reich Air Ministry was worried that future foreign designs might surpass its performance so they called for submissions of designs. Kurt Tank won the competition with his radical use of an air-cooled radial engine that he dubbed the Fw-190 Wurger (Butcher Bird). There were many skeptics who believed this new aircraft would surpass the performance of the Me-109. However when the Fw-190 entered combat in the summer of 1941 it already was Germany’s premiere piston-powered WWII fighter. Over 20,000 of all variants of the Fw-190 were built with 13,291 of these being of the 9 different “A” variants.

The production of the Fw-190A-7 began in November 1943 and ended in January 1944 with only 80 aircraft being produced. Fw-190-A-7 W.Nr380394 was the test aircraft for an attempt to reduce drag caused by center-line fuel tanks thereby increasing airspeed. The experiment was called “Doppelreiter” (Double Rider) and involved placing a streamlined fuel tank on top of each wing which meant reducing the armament to two 151/20 E cannons. Each tank was droppable and carried 270 liters of fuel giving the aircraft an extended range. The over the wing tanks reduced the aircraft speed by 13 kph while the standard center-line tank reduced speed by 33 kph. Even though these were positive results the RLM did not accept the modification because they didn’t want to disturb regular production schedules. The A-7 was replaced by the A-8 variant

Specifications for the Focke-Wulf Fw-190A-7 Crew 1 Dimensions Wing span - 10.5 m Length - 8.95 m Height - 3.95 m Performance Powerplant - 1 x PE BMW-801D-2, 1700 hp Maximum speed - 610 km/h Time to 6000 m - 9 minutes Service ceiling - 11,400 m Service range (with external fuel tank) - 1,470 km Weight Empty - 3,470 kg Maximum takeoff - 4,900 kg

Armament 4 X 20-mm cannons 2 X 13-mm machine guns