Blohm und Voss BV 141
A German reconnaissance aircraft of radical asymmetric layout, designed by Richard Vogt at Blohm und Voss to give its three-man crew the clearest possible view: the engine and tail rode in a boom to port while the crew sat in a glazed gondola to starboard. It flew well from February 1938, but it never entered production or service and no example survives.
Why It Mattered
The BV 141 began with a 1937 German Air Ministry specification for a single-engined reconnaissance aircraft whose crew needed the best possible view of the ground. Blohm und Voss had not been invited to take part, but chief designer Richard Vogt answered with an aircraft that put the crew in a glazed pod beside the engine rather than in a fuselage behind it. The reference history at History of War calls Vogt's entry the most radical of the designs submitted for the specification. The point of the layout was sight: separated from the engine, the crew had a largely unobstructed view in most directions. The aircraft flew well, yet it was never ordered into production, never served, and no example survives.
Design Notes
The engine occupied the main fuselage, a boom that ran back to the tail, while the crew sat in a glazed pod carried on the right wing, linked to the engine by a short central section of wing. All three crew — pilot, observer and rear gunner — rode in that gondola, glazed with Plexiglas and offset to starboard of the engine and tail boom. The asymmetry ran to the details: the left wing was made longer than the right. At the tail, the fin stood on the engine boom, with the horizontal surfaces carried entirely on the left-hand side. On the B-series the tailplane itself became asymmetric, its starboard side virtually removed to clear the rear gunner's field of fire. Armament in the B-0 comprised two fixed forward-firing MG 17 machine guns and two flexible MG 15s firing aft, with a bomb load of four 50 kg bombs.
Operational History
The Air Ministry funded prototypes from Arado and Focke-Wulf but gave Blohm und Voss nothing, so the company built a single prototype, the Ha 141-0, with its own funds. It made its maiden flight on 25 February 1938 and flew surprisingly well. Ernst Udet, then head of the ministry's technical department, tested the aircraft himself, and the company was awarded a contract for three prototypes. The V1 followed in September 1938, larger than the first aircraft and the first with the fully glazed crew compartment; the V3 added automatic cameras and armament. Five A-0 pre-production aircraft followed, and although the series performed well, production plans were cancelled in April 1940 because of a lack of engine power. The answer was the B-0, re-engined with the more powerful 1,560 hp BMW 801A radial, whose first example, the V9, flew on 9 January 1941 and proved something of a disappointment. Work on the B series dragged: the last of the five, B-05, was not delivered until 15 May 1943. Late in 1941 a B-0 was tested by Aufklärungsschule 1 at Grossenhain, and the ministry decided to form a special test unit to operate the type on the Eastern Front. The delays overtook the plan, which was cancelled in the spring of 1942; by then the rival Fw 189 had already been in service for more than a year, and the ministry cancelled all further work on the BV 141. At no point was the BV 141 considered an operational type.
Afterlife
The end came slowly: although further work was cancelled in 1942, the last B-0, B-05, was not delivered until 15 May 1943. Advancing Allied forces found several wrecked BV 141s. The British captured one and sent it to England for examination. No example survives today. Vogt kept drawing asymmetric aircraft, among them the piston-jet P.194.01, but none of his later designs was built. Blohm und Voss did receive a production order for another asymmetric design, the Bv 237 dive-bomber, but it was cancelled for shortage of suitable engines.