Talk:Arado Ar 234/Archive 1

What are those strange underwing devices?
Hi, does anybody know the purpose of those two underwing devices that are installed in the outer portion of both wings? They are positioned about the same distance from engines as are the engines positioned from fuselage. They can be clearly seen on following pictures:

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/images/arado_234.jpg

http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/data/4173/Ardo_Ar-234_4.jpg - from profile

http://www.vectorsite.net/avar234_7.jpg

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/775/775516/il-2-sturmovik-1946--20070323024202669.jpg

Thanks! Rob


 * RATO units, see here --Denniss 16:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes it is Walter HWK 500A-1 RATO units. With only 8.3 kN of thrust available from each Jumo 004B jet, the Ar 234A was short on take-off power, particularly when loaded to the maximum weight of 8,000 kg. Rauchgeräte take-off rocket units were added to improve the trust, these being jettisoned after climb-out and descending to earth by parachute. --MoRsE 21:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see proof that the Ar234B had rear fuselage internally mounted 20mm cannons as I can find no reference to them being mounted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kutscha (talk • contribs) 12:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Fleischer, Rys: Ar 234 Blitz, AJ-Press, Gdynia 1997 and Monogramm Close-up 23 Ar 234, Boylston 1983 show drawings and explode view with 2 cannons mounted in the low rear fuselage. All Internet sources I have found mention this armament and also several further books. --JuergenKlueser (talk) 23:02, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, if it's on the Internet it must be right, right? Those cannon were never actually mounted in an operational 234.173.62.108.108 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Wich is written in the artcle itself if you had read it correctly. Regards Juanal expert (talk) 09:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

O'hare
Wonder if anyone would care that Orchard Place Airport is better known today as O'Hare, the busiest or second busiest airport in the world. Jmdeur (talk) 19:38, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Units
I changed the units back, because this way it is wrong. E,g, the 1./33 was not a Fernaufklärungsgruppe. All Recon units founded before the war were in fact squadrons that were assigned to a region. The number codes gave information about region, the number of the group in the region (and partially even more). The sqn was differentiated by its task of far recon (F) or close support of recon for the army (Heer), written as (H). Later in the war some new groups were founded. These consisted of a management staff and assigned squadrons. So for example in March 45 the 1.(F)/33 was assigned to the FAG1. A very good book is "Die Verbände der Luftwaffe" by Wolfgang Dierich (in German). It lists all units of the Luftwaffe. regards Juergen — Preceding unsigned comment added by JuergenKlueser (talk • contribs) 17:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding Images of the Aircraft
Recently I've removed an image that was provided on this Wiki page which is a picture of a plastic model of the Ar 234 aircraft. While the model might be one of the aircraft in question, a model of it shouldn't be included in an encyclopedic entry about the Ar 234. Models are known to not be 100% accurate to the real aircraft, with discrepancies in series or shape, but bigger than that is there's no proof that the builder made the model to what it's supposed to look like. Paint, decals, weapons loadout; all these are up to the modeler and don't have encyclopedic value. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrel (talk • contribs) 16:18, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That's only your opininion and not shared by others. It depicts a supposed variant/option where there's no real image available so it's perfectly valid. --Denniss (talk) 12:47, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Museum-class models are dimensionally accurate, show typical markings and color schemes and represent a suitable example of a type. See the many air museums that use models to represent aircraft that are not on display. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:45, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Tonnes/tons?
I have never seen an aircraft's empty or gross weight, or payload, specified in "tonnes" in any official document or specification. Journalists might refer to a 747, say, as weighing "350 tons," but that's only because it sounds much heavier, to a naive reader, than does 700,000 pounds. Engineers, pilots, marketers and everybody else in the aviation business talks in terms of pounds or kilograms. (I'm a commercial pilot.) Particularly when you have to specify the difference between "long" and "short" tons. To say nothing of the Britishism "tonnes..."173.62.108.108 (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

350 tons *is* heavier than 700,000 pounds. By about 10%. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2788:1008:6D6:E2CB:4EFF:FE88:1A2D (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

"Tonne" is hardly a Britishism, since it is the metric ton of 1,000kg -- about 10 per cent more than a US 'short' ton or 1 per cent less than an imperial 'long' ton. Khamba Tendal (talk) 11:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * We write for the average reader insofar as we can. The non-specialist reader can envisage several tons/tonnes relative to their car (around 2), or an elephant (10), or possibly even as a cubic metre of water etc. What I don't believe they are all very good at doing is mentally dividing a large number with several zeroes in it by 2,240 or 2,204 and getting the right answer. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:35, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Model-number consistency...that old hobgoblin
This piece jumps back and forth william-nilliam between "AR234B" and "AR234 B2," etc. etc. Do we want these model designators to by typographically solid or spaced out?173.62.39.116 (talk) 22:32, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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'Nearly impossible to intercept'
The article makes the unsourced claim that 'In its few uses as a bomber it proved nearly impossible to intercept.' This isn't altogether correct. The service B-2 model had a quoted maximum of about 460mph at 20,000ft, but, unless it was rigged and fettled perfectly, with minute attention to aileron hinge-shrouds and the fin and rudder kept perfectly flush, the B-2 became directionally unstable above 370mph. It would start to 'snake' and the stick would oscillate violently. On production aircraft maintained at service units, perfect rigging would never occur, so high speed was to be avoided if possible. (William Green, War Planes of the Second World War, Bombers and Reconnaissance Aircraft Vol.VIII: France and Germany, London, Macdonald, 1967, SBN 356-01478-9, p.99.)

Reconnaissance missions were perhaps safer, being flown at a good continuous cruise speed at high altitude, and bombing missions by II/KG76 during the Ardennes counter-offensive seem to have escaped interception, but subsequent bombing missions in 1945 resulted in several Allied fighter kills. On 2 March 1945, Flt Lt Daniel Reid of 41 Sqn RAF, in a Spitfire XIV, shot down an Ar 234 in full flight near Nijmegen. http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/49066 Reid recorded in his combat report, 'The E/A turned slightly to Starboard and continued towards the North East, weaving slightly from time to time. I kept out of the enemy pilot's view by keeping under his tail plane and slowly overhauled him at an I.A.S. of 340 m.p.h. at 8/9000 ft. Whilst astern of the E/A I was only able to say it was jet propelled and not an Me.262 (or Meteor). I closed to 100 yards or less, firing with .5 M.G. and cannon whilst still overtaking. I saw strikes on the Port wing, Port jet engine and fuselage. E/A immediately emitted dense clouds of brownish smoke, possibly jet exhaust. I continued firing and saw flashes in the smoke, breaking away at extremely close range, and being hit in the port radiator by debris. I next saw E/A going down in a wide spiral to Starboard with white smoke or vapour pouring from holes all along the Port wing, and dark smoke from the fuselage. I could then see the long nose of the a/c and the straight tapered wings with rounded tips and identified E/A as an Arado 234. A large piece of E/A suddenly flew off, and one person baled out, parachute opening. E/A steepened its dive and crashed somewhere near Enschede, being completely destroyed by explosion. Some fire from the ground was seen at this time. I returned to patrol being rejoined by my No. 2 who witnessed the destruction of this enemy a/c. I claim one Arado 234 destroyed.'

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit14v109.html

The German pilot, Oblt Walter Sutterlin, baled out safely. It's of note that, earlier in his report, Reid mentions that he still had his drop tank on, because it wouldn't detach due to 'high speed'. It's also of note that 340 IAS at 9000ft means a significantly higher true airspeed. Sutterlin could perhaps have accelerated away if he'd seen the Spitfires, but he apparently didn't.

On 14 March 1945, when Ar 234s of III/KG76 were attacking the Ludendorff Bridge and the parallel Allied pontoon bridge at Remagen, Capt Don Bryan of the US 352nd Fighter Group (the 'Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney' after their former English base and the paint scheme of their Mustangs) shot down an Ar 234 after the Arado broke hard and scrubbed off speed to evade an attack by a group of US Thunderbolts. The German pilot, Hpt Hans Hirschberger, was killed.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2016/09/22/wwii-aircraft-the-arado-ar-234-blitz-jet/

Since III/KG76 were supposedly generating 50 sorties a day at that time (Green, op. cit., p.97), a single loss to Allied fighters wasn't bad -- if that was in fact the only one -- but the Ar 234 was not invulnerable.

On 12 April 1945, Flt Lt Tony Gaze, a noted Australian ace of 41 Sqn RAF, in a Spitfire XIV, together with his Red 3 wingman, Flt Lt DV Rake, destroyed an Ar 234 in full flight in the 'Delmenhorst-Verden' area, just south of Bremen. Gaze did punch off his drop tank, and he made the interception by 'cutting the corner' on the Arado as it turned around to flee. (ref spitfireperformance.com as before.)

On 2 May 1945 Plt Off DJ Watkins, a British ace flying with 350 (Belgian) Sqn RAF, together with Flt Lt Baugerter, Flt Sgt Kicq and Fg Off Van Eckhoudt, all in Spitfire XIVs, caught an Ar 234 on landing approach to Hohn aerodrome and destroyed it (spitfireperformance.com as before), but then the German was at a critical disadvantage. Even so, Spitfire XIVs clearly could catch Ar 234s in full flight.

Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:55, 12 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The article does not say impossible. There is the word "nearly". --JuergenKlueser (talk) 05:43, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Barely qualifies as "often", let alone "nearly". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2788:1008:6D6:E2CB:4EFF:FE88:1A2D (talk) 20:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Captured planes in the French Air Force?
Is there any reference for this claim? I was looking around and it sounds disputed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Farfisa2000 (talk • contribs) 08:04, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Probably unlikely that the French would operate them, so unless somebody finds a reliable source then the entry can be removed. MilborneOne (talk) 15:00, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Article reversion
Could I ask why my edit was reverted? The note says "deleted too much", but this isn't really true (and in any case, isn't the advice to "be bold"?). Most of what I did was rephrase awkward wordings, correct grammar/usage, and cut redundant/excessive information, NPOV, speculation, and a few German words that didn't add anything. As for the "variants" section, this seemed like an indiscriminate collection of information; sometimes there's one entry per airframe (eg V7, V15). Example 4 at WP:INDISCRIMINATE is "exhaustive logs of software updates"; isn't this a perfect example? Moreover, all of those planes had either already had extensive coverage earlier in the article, or were never produced. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 03:29, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. You were bold. Now we're at discuss. The variants section is a summary, quite common in aircraft articles even when following a larger coverage of the material earlier in the article. See also the style guide for aircraft I'm not claiming it's perfect or unimprovable. Chaff needs to be sorted from wheat and operational elements from out of the mix with design changes.  GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:00, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The style guide that you just linked to reads "This section briefly describes the major subtypes and variants of the aircraft." - what do you feel this covers?
 * If you have any thoughts on the other changes I made, I would be eager to hear them. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 12:05, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello, I would like to explain what changes I made and why. I would be delighted to receive your feedback on these points.
 * 1. Clarified awkward phrasing. Example: changing “Erich Sommer himself once noted for late 20th-century television that the landing skid-equipped prototypes, when touching down on a wet-turf airstrip, had a landing run characteristic that "was like greased lightning"” to “Erich Sommer noted that landing the skid-equipped prototypes on wet turf "was like greased lightning"”.
 * 2. Corrected grammar and usage. Example: changing the top infobox from “reconnaissance jet bomber” to “reconnaissance / jet bomber”.
 * 3. Cut excessive information. Example: cut “The 1942-executed engineering drawing of the trio of fuel tanks in the fuselage, when using a skid/trolley undercarriage design, showed a 1,430-litre (378 US gal) forward tank, the aforementioned central tank of some 830 litres (219 US gal) capacity, and an aft tank of 1,540 litres (407 US gal) capacity. - the V9 and later examples had enlarged forward (1,800-litre/476 US gal) and aft (2,000-litre/528 US gal) fuel tanks to compensate for the omitted 830-litre central fuel tank.”
 * 4. Removed jargon, excessive links, and excessive unnecessary German per WP:NONENGLISHTITLE. Examples: cut the single-use acronym “ASTMS” and links to US towns near airfields; changed “Reich Air Ministry (German: Reichsluftfahrtministerium, abbreviated RLM)” to “Nazi Ministry of Aviation”, matching the page’s title and removing an acronym used only once in the article text.
 * 5. Removed phrases that threatened NPOV. Examples: cut “This […] made it the only bomber with any hope of surviving the massive Allied air forces.”
 * 6. Added tags for clarification. Examples: asking when the RLM ordered B-series prototypes.
 * 7. Removed speculation/original research. Example: cut “If the war had continued it is possible that the aircraft would have been converted to use examples of the FuG 203 Kehl MCLOS radio guidance transmitter system to deploy and control one Henschel Hs 293 air-to-surface missile, itself weighing some 1,045 kg.” (NB this was uncited.)
 * 8. Removed the “variants” section per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The aviation style guide says a variants section should list “the major subtypes and variants of the aircraft”, not individual planes.CohenTheBohemian (talk) 14:29, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
 * You make good points in general, but sometimes many points in one edit are too much to follow and that would have been a very large edit summary so I can't blame you for that. A brief reply at the moment because I am under the weather. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:54, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply; I look forward to chatting with you more when you are feeling better - very soon, I hope! CohenTheBohemian (talk) 16:15, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello there; do let me know if you have any more thoughts on the article. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 16:19, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I've asked twice that you please discuss this matter. I'm going to go ahead and make the change I've described above. If you revert without responding here, then I'm going to have to file a complaint against you at ANI for disruptive editing by reverting without discussing. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 03:11, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Bilcat - I assume the unsigned comment is yours, but I can't see how to reply to it, so I'm replying to myself.
 * 1. Fair point about "reconnaissance / jet bomber".
 * 2. The amount of editing I did today was less than it might appear; I couldn't undo the original undo, and therefore just cut-and-pasted chunks from the original edit, of many small changes and one major. You might find this useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arado_Ar_234&diff=1053561021&oldid=1052926316&diffmode=source
 * 3. As for the variants, many of these never existed - by the testimony of the section itself - and therefore can't be considered "major", which is what the style guide said; in fact, the only "major variant" seemed to be the B-series, and a list of one variant seemed pointless.
 * I hope those points help you understand my thinking. On another note, two questions.
 * 1. I wonder if you could explain why you said in the edit summary that there was "no consensus" for my changes. From my perspective, GraemeLeggett and I discussed the matter, and I assumed by their last comment ("You make good points in general") that they had changed their mind. This was two weeks ago; nobody else said anything, so consensus seemed to have been reached. I have been looking at WP:DRNC and WP:CON for this.
 * 2. Both GraemeLeggett and you said that my edits were too long. Is there some guidance on this? Would it have been better to make a series of small changes? I couldn't find any guidance on this.
 * Thank you for your help.
 * CohenTheBohemian (talk) 16:59, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * If you have no objections, I will go ahead and start re-adding my changes in smaller focused edits. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 13:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
 * As there has been opportunity to discuss, and no more comments, it seems there is a consensus. I will add these changes again. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 03:44, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As there has been opportunity to discuss, and no more comments, it seems there is a consensus. I will add these changes again. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 03:44, 11 December 2021 (UTC)


 * WWII history as such isn't my strong suit, but I am an experienced editor, especially in aircraft articles. Some of your points have merit, but some don't. I've no issue with you adding tags, such as for clarification, so those can go back. As for "reconnaissance jet bomber", it's clunky, but "reconnaissance / jet bomber" implies its not a jet for reconnaissance missions! It's late here, but I'll try to address the points tomorrow, or to make updates to the article myself.  My biggest issue, however, is with removing so much from the Variants section. It was standard practice for the Germans to give most prototypes and sub-variants separate designations for the various changes and field mods, and I see no valid reason to remove them, as that's what a Variants section is for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BilCat (talk • contribs)


 * I had a look and there isn't any specific guidance on "size" of an edit. To make it easier to review edits, it does help if the edits are thematically (for want of a better word) linked. Eg if you went through an article and changed all instances of "colour" to "color" (because it was an article about an American artist) - then a subsequent editor would nod that through. But including at the same time a big change such as swapping out all the instances of examples of the artists works for different examples would mean an editor would probably revert the whole and the otherwise innocuous change would be lost along the way. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for your advice (and the effort you went to looking it up); I'll remember this in future. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 12:40, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Existing aircraft.
Seems odd, when there's only one survivor, to not mention where it is near the top of the paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2788:1008:6D6:E2CB:4EFF:FE88:1A2D (talk) 20:52, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The head image of the article states where the last survivor is, no need to put it in the top paragraphs Juanal expert (talk) 07:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Reconnaissance role
The line "Produced in limited numbers it was used almost entirely for aerial reconnaissance" is not correct. Yes, there were small reconnaissance formations that used the plane, but most planes were used in the bombing role by Kampfgeschwader 76. LukeFF (talk) 16:59, 6 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Wel Luke. The A version was entirely reconaissance. And the B version was also reconaissance until the B2. So yes, the line is (mostly) correct. Maybe could be refrased. Juanal expert (talk) 11:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Variants
All variants data is based in only 1 book, it should be verified by more soruces because many of them I seem to be unable to find reliable information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juanal expert (talk • contribs) 08:59, 16 June 2022 (UTC)