The Focke-Wulf Fw 190

It was an unpleasant surprise. The pilots of the RAF Spitfire had rejected the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and now, in the summer of 1941, they had to deal with it to defend Europe. They had not expected, however, the appearance of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the new German fighters, with radial engine, which could easily counter the inadequate Spitfire V. When the RAF finally managed to capture a specimen in 1942, it was realized that the ugly news had yet to arrive. The 190, in fact, turned out faster than any British fighter or the US, and with a powerful armament, the agile German aircraft could destroy them with ease. Product, in more than 20,000 specimens, fast, agile, well armed, easy to build and to keep in efficiency, safe in the pilot and in the use, extremely versatile, loved by its pilots and feared by opponents: this was the Focke-Wulf 190. The plane was one of the fruits of the genius of a famous aeronautical designer, Kurt Tank, who managed to summarize in the most happy all the "summa" of aerodynamic and structural knowledge of the time in a project as a classic in the general architecture as innovator solutions, to the point that the last piston fighter products in the world, the Soviet La. 11 to the English "Sea Fury", explicitly reveal their descent from the founder German. Its small size and the high maneuverability were ideal for a fighter, as well as the high visibility ensured from the cockpit. Was remarkably robust and trolley wide track allowed him to work even on slopes of luck. It took two years before the allies were able to prepare aircraft capable of dealing with the Focke-Wulf, who remained throughout World War II (in the various evolutions) a benchmark for the various Allied fighters.