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. Jet aircraft are aircraft with jet engines. ... A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for attacking other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed to attack ground targets, primarily by dropping bombs. ... Juan Perón - Former President of Argentina. ...

An early Pulqui II prototype

History

In the years following WWII, 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 immortal 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. German soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad World War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the worlds nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. ... Kurt Waldemar Tank, 1944. ... Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG was a German manufacturer of military aircraft used by the Luftwaffe during World War II. Many of the companys successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. ... Córdoba most commonly means Córdoba, Spain, a famous city in Spain inhabited since the time of ancient Rome, and the seat of the Emir of Córdoba and the Caliph of Córdoba. ...

Kurt Tank's assignment was to design a far better airplane than the 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 32º swept wing, and accomodating a Heinkel He S011A jet engine which would bring it to calculated maximum speed of 967 km/h at an altitude of 7000 meters. Mapudungun is an Araucanian language spoken in Chile and Argentina by the Mapuche people. ... The   Luftwaffe? (German: air force, IPA: [luftvafÉ™]) is the commonly used term for the German air force. ... The Focke-Wulf Ta-183 Huckebein was a jet-powered fighter aircraft, designed during World War II as the successor to the Messerschmitt Me 262 in Luftwaffe service. ... Heinkel Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturing company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. ...

Like the MiG-15, being developed in the Soviet Union at the same time, the chosen powerplant for the Pulqui II was 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 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (NATO reporting name Fagot) was a jet fighter developed for the USSR. History Design began under the bureau designation I-310, which first flew in 1947. ... Rolls-Royce is a set of companies, all deriving from the British automobile and aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Henry Royce and C.S. Rolls in 1906. ...

The high-mounted negative-incidence wings were swept back 40º, 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 20mm cannon. Contrary to the previous Dewoitine design, many elements incorporated into the Pulqui II were totally new in the fields of aeronautical construction, placing the Argentinean aero industry amongst the most advanced during those years. The Focke-Wulf Ta-183 Huckebein was a jet-powered fighter aircraft, designed during World War II as the successor to the Messerschmitt Me 262 in Luftwaffe service. ...

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 Behrens. Kurt Tank also completed a good number of the test flights undertaken during the following weeks. The new aircraft proved successful in most respects, but like its "cousin" the MiG-15 it displayed some handling difficulties at the extremes of the flight envelope. 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. Kurt Tank moved on to another 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. The Argentine Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Argentina) is the air force of Argentina. ...

Despite the fact that it never went beyond prototype stage due to economic 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 6th country in the world to develop such technology on its own. Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ...

Technical Data

Length: 11,68 meters
Wing Span: 10,60 meters
Height: 3,50 meters
Thrust: 2.267 kp
Weight: 3.600 kg (empty)
Speed: 1.050 km/h
Engine: Rolls Royce Nene II
The deprecated unit kilogram-force (kgf) or kilopond (kp) is the force exerted by one kilogram of mass in standard Earth gravity (defined as exactly 9. ... Rolls-Royce is a set of companies, all deriving from the British automobile and aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Henry Royce and C.S. Rolls in 1906. ...

Armament Air to Air: 4 x Hispano Mark V 20 mm cannon
The Hispano Suiza 20 mm cannon was one of the most widely used aircraft weapons of the 20th century, used by British, American, French, and many other military services. ...

A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for attacking other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed to attack ground targets, primarily by dropping bombs. ...