Posts: 4.857
Threads: 96
Joined: Jan 2009
Looks like a F-Zero racer
Same here - it's also one of my favourite Luft '46 designs and I would also like to see it in the game someday. I have the Huma-Modell kit built and it really looks great.
This design was turned down and Kurt Tank came up with a new design which had little to do with the first one except for the ramjet and rocket propulsion concept (and didn't look half as good!). It was also rejected by the RLM. Realistically, I doubt it would have been much use. It was to have been a high speed intercepter which required rocket propulsion to take off and gain sufficient altitude and speed to start-up the ramjet engines at which point it would fly really fast and require a lot of skill from the pilot to make successful interceptions and shoot down enemy bombers (let's forget about fighters!) - think along the lines of the games BI-6. Once speed is lost, the engines would shut down and the aircraft would have to glide back to base
I'd imagine the pilot making very fast passes and simply leaving allied escorts wondering who that masked luftwaffe pilot was. Almost no time to aim the guns at bombers, so mass effect would be vital to avoid wasted ammo (The R4M would be back in business!)
In combat, I would also expect to see the Ta283 used in a horizontal plane with occaisional zoom climbs. Given how slippery the design is and that the ramjets have no throttle, a dive would go way beyond design limits very quickly. So it would be a sort of 'turn verry slowly and burn' fighter. Especially since the germans hadn't thought of inflatable trousers to offset G forces.
