FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II

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IAe 33 Pulqui II

Type	Fighter
Manufacturer	Fábrica Militar de Aviones (FMA)
Designed by	Kurt Tank
Maiden flight	16 June 1950
Retired	1955
Status	Cancelled
Primary user	Fuerza Aérea Argentina
Number built	5
Developed from	Focke-Wulf Ta 183

FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II, more commonly known as the Pulqui II, was a jet fighter aircraft developed between the years 1950-53, in Argentina, during the Perón government.

1 History
2 Specifications
3 References
4 Related content

[edit] History

In the years following World War II, Argentina approached different German scientists and offered them a chance to rebuild their professional lives, not unlike what was done by other countries like France, the United States or the Soviet Union. One of these scientists was arguably the most talented of all German aircraft constructors: engineer Kurt Tank. Famous for the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 / Ta 152 series of fighters, Tank quickly collected a large team originating from that aircraft's design bureau, and established himself in Córdoba in 1947.

Kurt Tank's assignment was to design a far better airplane than the I.Ae. 27 Pulqui I, the first Argentine prototype for a national jet fighter. It had been decided from the beginning that the new fighter would be named the Pulqui II (pulqui meaning 'arrow' in Mapudungun). For that Tank was very well prepared for the job. From the late 1944, his team had been working on a 2nd generation jet fighter for the Luftwaffe under the designation Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Huckebein. It was an advanced jet, extraordinarily compact in size and aerodynamically clean, sporting a 32° swept wing, and accommodating a Heinkel He S011A jet engine which would bring it to calculated maximum speed of 967 km/h at an altitude of 7000 metres.

Like the MiG-15, being developed in the Soviet Union at the same time, the chosen powerplant for the Pulqui II was the Rolls-Royce Nene II. The Nene was more powerful than the He S011A but required a redesigned new fuselage with a larger cross-section due to it having a centrifugal rather than axial compressor. The resulting product was the IAe.33 Pulqui II.

The high-mounted negative-incidence wings were swept back 40°, even more than the Ta 183. The long fuselage was perfectly circular in section with the engine buried inside right at the center of gravity. The airframe was finished off with a graceful swept-back T-shaped tail. The pilot sat in a pressurized cockpit under a teardrop canopy. Armament would include four fuselage-mounted 20 mm cannon. Contrary to the previous Pulqui I design by Émile Dewoitine, many design elements incorporated into the Pulqui II were new in the fields of aeronautical construction, placing the Argentinean aero industry amongst the forefront of aviation technology during those years.

The first flight of the IAe.33 Pulqui II no. 2 took place on 16 June 1950 with Osvaldo Weiss at the controls. The second flight which took place three days later was entrusted to ex-Focke Wulf test pilot Otto Behrens. Kurt Tank also completed a good number of the test flights undertaken during the following weeks. The new aircraft proved relatively successful in some respects, but it displayed severe handling difficulties at various points of the flight envelope - specifically deep stall problems at high angles of attack. Behrens personally characterized the handling characteristics of Pulqui II as, "the worst he had ever experienced as a test pilot" - a fact that was borne out by the fatal crashes of two prototypes during testing, one of which killed Behrens. Lack of operational range was another problem which wasn't solved until the fifth prototype.

Meanwhile, the economic crisis that hit Argentina beginning in 1953 forced the slowing down of armament development programs. The high-cost high-profile Pulqui II project was halted, first temporarily, but the fall of Peron administration in 1955 meant it was never to recover. The final nail in the coffin for the Pulqui II project was the availability of cheap combat proven surplus F-86 Sabres from the end of the Korean War, at a fraction of the cost of the expensive and troubled indigenous aircraft. Kurt Tank moved on to other projects, first trying to return to Germany but then moving on to India. Most of his team ended up leaving Argentina to find work in the United States and other countries. Kurt Tank himself was not to return to his life and work in Germany until 1970s, where he died in 1983.

Today, the sole Pulqui I and the Pulqui II no. 5 are preserved at the Argentine Air Force’s Museum in Buenos Aires.

Despite the fact that it never went beyond prototype stage due to economic and political reasons, the Pulqui is still considered important in aviation history because it was the first jet fighter to be entirely developed and built in Latin America, making Argentina the 5th country in the world to develop such technology on its own.