Jumo 222

[JtD]

This engine has recently come to my attention. It's certainly one of the most interesting and capable designs of the period. As with the wiki article, the general consensus, however, seems to be that it was good on paper but in practice developed so many problems, it never got working.

 

On the other hand I have read, that by 1941, reliability was satisfactory only at 1850hp maximum power, which is considerably short of the target figure of 2500hp. It is, however, the same power the R-2800 (at near identical weight and displacement) developed in the A-series engines in 1940. The B-series of the R-2800 at the same time managed 2000hp.

 

The R-2800 development started more than a year earlier, so it doesn't seem too unlikely that the Jumo 222 development was in fact going as expected (with series production planned for 1943). However, for political reasons the whole bomber B program, and the Jumo 222 as a part of it, got torpedoed by German officials (Erhard Milch) in 1941 and this may be a major cause for the resulting mess.

 

I've tried to read up on the subject but as far as unfinished German engine development is concerned, there's little information around. Most of it is Allied post war analysis, and some technical and general statements here and there, which are on occasion conflicting. Interrogated members of the development team probably wouldn't say the engine was a failure, not matter if it was or wasn't, I guess.

 

So, can anyone recommend a good book or read on the technical bits of the Jumo 222 development?

[Gunsmith86]

In his book "Ein Leben zwischen Fronten" (A life between frontiers) Ferdinand Brandner (chief designer of the Jumo 222) describes the development and the related problems of the 222 in great detail.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Gunsmith86

[JtD]

Thanks for the tip. Hadn't popped up as a source, so I'd easily have missed that.

[Retnek]

If you read German and have access to a library system:

 

Kyrill von Gersdorff & Kurt Grassmann

Flugmotoren und Strahltriebwerke

Bernhard und Graefe Verlag, München, 1981

p. 84 - 88

 

Reinhard Müller

Junkers Triebwerke

Aviatic Verlag, Oberhaching, 2006

p. 183 - 192

 

Ferdinand Brandner

Ein Leben zwischen den Fronten

Verlag Welsermühl, Wels, 1973

p., 68 - 85

 

If you can't find any access, let me know.

[ZachariasX]

Good book suggestions!

 

Since you say this:

However, for political reasons the whole bomber B program, and the Jumo 222 as a part of it, got torpedoed by German officials (Erhard Milch) in 1941 and this may be a major cause for the resulting mess.

I suggest you also have a look in this one by Budrass.Unfortunately it is hard to come by and very expensive. In there, the author makes the point that the Ju-88 and the following Bomber B program was the top of the GL's (and Milchs) whishlist, this including the Jumo-222. The Germans didn't want to kill that engine, they on the contrary bet their entire future along with their supposed "standard type" aircraft on that engine. They allocated ressources to that to produce 1000 engines per month! That was their plan. But in 1944, would you rather go on flogging a dead horse (while getting bombed all the time) or allow Junkers to build something they could do, namely 12 cylinder inline engines?

 

It appears much more, that the complicated nature of such "many row" inline engines (including the eventually sucessful Sabre) made them a bad choice to put them in field use. Even the Brits replaced the Sabre with the radial engine once available (even though that was a sleeve valve design as well).

[JtD]

I suggest you also have a look in this one by Budrass.Unfortunately it is hard to come by and very expensive. In there, the author makes the point that the Ju-88 and the following Bomber B program was the top of the GL's (and Milchs) whishlist, this including the Jumo-222. The Germans didn't want to kill that engine, they on the contrary bet their entire future along with their supposed "standard type" aircraft on that engine. They allocated ressources to that to produce 1000 engines per month! That was their plan. But in 1944, would you rather go on flogging a dead horse (while getting bombed all the time) or allow Junkers to build something they could do, namely 12 cylinder inline engines?

 

It appears much more, that the complicated nature of such "many row" inline engines (including the eventually sucessful Sabre) made them a bad choice to put them in field use. Even the Brits replaced the Sabre with the radial engine once available (even though that was a sleeve valve design as well).

I recently acquired that book and while I paid near 300€ for it, it's worth every Cent. It's in many ways an eye opener, one of the best books I've ever read, but of course it can't cover every technical detail about every aircraft or every engine project. It is in fact that book, combined with a web search, that made me curious. enginehistory.org has a few sources, and there are a few websites dedicated to the Ju288 and Jumo222, but sites that start with 'best engine ever' are probably not the most objective ones.

 

On the bomber B program, Budrass also makes the point that Erhard Milch sacrificed the project in order to get rid of Koppenberg, so that Milch himself would have a bigger say. While this power struggle was only a temporary disturbance, the results for the bomber B and the Jumo222 were longer lasting and might have contributed to the eventual failure. Additionally, lower initial requirements (than for the Ju288) with regards to engine power, might have gotten the engine past initial troubles, same way that happened with the initially very troublesome BMW801. For comparison, the B-26 Marauder was initially equipped with 1850hp R-2800's, and was roughly the same size and weight a Ju288 was supposed to be - and 1850 was initially enough.

 

So thanks for the tips, I've added these books to my to-read list.

[ZachariasX]

I recently acquired that book and while I paid near 300€ for it, it's worth every Cent. It's in many ways an eye opener, one of the best books I've ever read, but of course it can't cover every technical detail about every aircraft or every engine project. It is in fact that book, combined with a web search, that made me curious. enginehistory.org has a few sources, and there are a few websites dedicated to the Ju288 and Jumo222, but sites that start with 'best engine ever' are probably not the most objective ones. :)On the bomber B program, Budrass also makes the point that Erhard Milch sacrificed the project in order to get rid of Koppenberg, so that Milch himself would have a bigger say. While this power struggle was only a temporary disturbance, the results for the bomber B and the Jumo222 were longer lasting and might have contributed to the eventual failure. Additionally, lower initial requirements (than for the Ju288) with regards to engine power, might have gotten the engine past initial troubles, same way that happened with the initially very troublesome BMW801. For comparison, the B-26 Marauder was initially equipped with 1850hp R-2800's, and was roughly the same size and weight a Ju288 was supposed to be - and 1850 was initially enough.So thanks for the tips, I've added these books to my to-read list.

I paid about the same for my copy of the book... But as you say, worth every cent. It is telling that we today do the same mistakes that the Germans made back then with the "one size fits all" jet fighters that are in fashion now... With regards to the Jumo222, I think too, they wanted too much from something that is rather complicated to build.

[Retnek]

Read some more from Brandners memories, bah, what a remarkable example of the German post-WW2 "Rechtfertigungsliteratur" (self-justification-literature). Sure, one has to read it when interested in the Jumo-222 (or Soviet turbo-props), but one has to cross-check any detail, too. This kind of books was not written to explain details or leave a honest report to the next generation. Investing hours of reading half-truth leaves a feeling of miss-harvest, but sometimes it's profitable to look for topics the gentlemen avoid to touch.

 

Brandner and some other prominent white collar mercenaries are described in some detail here:

 

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-45151898.html

 

in English:

 

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fspiegel%2Fprint%2Fd-45151898.html&edit-text=&act=url

 

(once upon a time, when the "Spiegel" was made by journalists)

[JtD]

Read some more from Brandners memories, bah, what a remarkable example of the German post-WW2 "Rechtfertigungsliteratur" (self-justification-literature).

It's the price you pay if you read auto-biographic titles. Everyone is a victim, suddenly. It's sometimes hard to stomach...

[Asgar]

 

 

This kind of books was not written to explain details or leave a honest report to the next generation.

which book is?  

[Retnek]

which book is?  

 

Ferdinand Brandner

Ein Leben zwischen den Fronten

Verlag Welsermühl, Wels, 1973

[Brano]

Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major looks like more viable solution then the Junkers one.

[Gunsmith86]

Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major looks like more viable solution then the Junkers one.

 

No if the germans had put the same enormous amount of time and resources into the development of the Jumo 222 it would have worked as well. A lot of the problems you get with the early Jumo 222 were similar to the problems the R-4360 Wasp Major had  during its development.

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&title=The-Pratt-and-Whitney-R4360-Wasp-Major&A=113208

 

Power-to-weight ratio of the of Jumo 222 (1,35-2,36 kW/kg) is as good as all the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major  (1,25-1.83 kW/kg). These were two of the most powerfule engines whit very view other engines around that had a similar good Power-to-weight ratio.

 

 Another Book with lots of info to the Jumo 222 is:

Focke-Wulf Fw 191 "Kampfflugzeug": und das Bomber-B-Programm von Hans-Peter Dabrowski, Peter Achs

[Retnek]

Gunsmith86, thx, pointing on the Fw-191 you gave my memory a kick - there's another gem going into detail:

 

Christoph Vernaleken & Martin Handig

Junkers Ju 388

Aviatik-Verlag, Unterhaching 2003

 

A dream of a book, wish there would be something comparable about the Ju-88! Hm, ok, that might become a book with 2400 pages in 6 volumes ... anyhow, the JU-388 book cares from  p. 86 - 123 for the "engines question" in general (BMW 801, Jumo 213 & 222, DB 603 incl. props), p. 111 - 119 for the Jumo 222 in detail. Lot's of rare & interesting stuff about the BMW-801-TJ etc

[ZachariasX]

Gunsmith86, thx, pointing on the Fw-191 you gave my memory a kick - there's another gem going into detail:

 

Christoph Vernaleken & Martin Handig

Junkers Ju 388

Aviatik-Verlag, Unterhaching 2003

 

A dream of a book, wish there would be something comparable about the Ju-88! Hm, ok, that might become a book with 2400 pages in 6 volumes ... anyhow, the JU-388 book cares from  p. 86 - 123 for the "engines question" in general (BMW 801, Jumo 213 & 222, DB 603 incl. props), p. 111 - 119 for the Jumo 222 in detail. Lot's of rare & interesting stuff about the BMW-801-TJ etc

Is it originally published in English or in German? Which is the "original"?

[Retnek]

Original is written in German language, never seen an English version, doubt there is one. Looking at the time and costs to publish such a book I can't image where to earn the additional money for a translated version ...

[ZachariasX]

Original is written in German language, never seen an English version, doubt there is one. Looking at the time and costs to publish such a book I can't image where to earn the additional money for a translated version ...

Looking it up, I mostly get this English version:

 

And only on Amazon I get a German version:

 

So, it is the latter that is the original writing?

[JtD]

The German book got published before the English one, so it's safe to assume that German is the original.

 

And thanks again for the various book recommendations!

Edited June 14, 2017 by JtD

[ZachariasX]

The German book got published before the English one, so it's safe to assume that German is the original.

 

And thanks again for the various book recommendations!

That's what I thought as well, but these might be different editions or reprints. Sometimes things get mixed up with these details. So I thought I ask to be safe.

[MiloMorai]

Edition and publishing dates are usually stated in books.