Focke-Wulf FW 190 V1 (prototype) with massive spinner

Cooling air was taken in thru the center hole in the spinner

(4 pix)

 As I mentioned in the FW 190 CoolPix post the other day, I've been a fan of the this airplane since I was a kid, but that doesn't mean there isn't a boatload of stuff for me to to still learn about it. Like; I didn't know the prototype aircraft had that huge spinner the diameter of the fuselage! I had no idea that this was the original concept Kurt Tank had for the airplane. I found out about the prototype FW 190 in a book my dad had that I stumbled across later the same day I had put up the CoolPix. The idea was that cooling air would enter into that big hole in the middle of the spinner, and the smaller spike spinner was there to help increase the air pressure. All this was supposed to lead to good cooling and low drag.

 There are two kinds of out-of-the-box thinking in aircraft design: super crazy cool ideas that are not only different, but right away they strike a chord as being really well worth the time and effort to give them a try. And then there are those ideas where you just have to say what the heck were these people thinking?! For me, that huge spinner fits the first category. It's like aerodynamics, art, and fantasy all coming together for a moment of synergy, but in the real world. Too bad this idea was better at looking cool than it was at keeping the engine cool.