Junkers K 47

K 47 and A 48
Junkers A 48 dy
Role	Fighter
National origin	Germany
Manufacturer	Junkers
Designer	Karl Plauth and Hermann Pohlmann
First flight	15 September Template:Avyear
Primary user	China
Number built	23

The Junkers K 47 was a fighter developed in Sweden by the Swedish subsidiary of the German firm Junkers during the late 1920s, a civil development of which was designated the A 48.

Design and development

Designed to meet a requirement of the Turkish government for a new fighter, the K 47 was a strut-braced, low-wing monoplane of conventional design. Two open cockpits accommodated the pilot and tail-gunner, and the empennage was designed with twin vertical surfaces to maximise the rearward field of fire. The main units of the fixed, tailskid undercarriage shared part of the truss structure that braced the wings. The design was originally undertaken by Karl Plauth, but completed after his death by Hermann Pohlmann. The aircraft had to be built at first in Sweden, because it was patently a military-type aircraft and therefore banned in Germany according to the terms of the Versailles Treaty.

Operational history

By the time the K 47 prototype was complete, Turkey had already lost interest in the type, but with the Soviet Union indicating interest, work continued. Eventually, however, the Soviet government only purchased two or three examples, and the only operational use of the type was China, which bought ten or twelve aircraft, naming the type the Tien Chu. Demonstrations were also carried out in Romania, Portugal, and Latvia without any resulting orders, although one aircraft may have been purchased by Japan. Three aircraft were used by the Reichswehr clandestine training facility at Lipetsk and a small number of the unarmed civil version were purchased by the DVS.

K 47s were also used in trials to investigate dive bombing, experiments that would be formative of Pohlmann's thinking in designing the Ju 87. Indeed, the second Ju 87 prototype was fitted with a K 47 tail.

Operators

Soviet Union

• Soviet Air Force - Two or three aircraft, used for tests and trials.

• Chinese Nationalist Air Force

Specifications (K 47)

Data from

General characteristics

• Crew: Two, pilot and gunner

Performance

References

• Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions. p. 546.
• The Hugo Junkers Homepage
• German Aircraft Between 1919-1945
• Уголок неба

External links

• Early Chinese aircraft (in Chinese)