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F.F.V.S. J22 Fighter Aircraft
From a technical perspective
Service in the Swedish Airforce 1943-1952
From a technical perspective Service in the Swedish Airforce 1943-1952 |
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Fighter comparison, 1000-1150hp Fighter comparison, mid to late 1943 |
The work beginsThe pre-design and conceptual design started in November 1940 in a small apartment in central Stockholm. The final proposal was given to the Procurement office in January 1941. Bo Lundberg was assigned a few engineers, among them 2 former colleagues, Lars Brising and Sven V Werner and later on Björn Andreasson. Brising would later on be involved in the development of the SAAB J29 and J32. Andreasson would later on move to the US where he became the Group Lead Engineer for the Flight Control Systems group at Convair in San Diego. Bjorn moved back to Sweden in 1960 to work for Malmö Flygindustri where they put his homebuilt aircraft, the BA-7, into production as the MFI-9. He was also later on my mentor when I was working as his assistant and after his demise, took over the Engineering office, for MFI 1988-94. The organizational chart as it looked in September 1942. The design and development of the wooden panels was performed by Gunnar Samuelsson, who had written a number of articles and studied the construction of wooden laminated panels for some time. At this time, the 1940's, there were no computers available (of course). All the development such as lofting, landing gear geometry and fuselage structure was performed by creating models and trying out the kinematics and geometry. The lofting was adjusted to allow for the landing gear retraction. As mentioned earlier, emphasis was given to the aerodynamic drag reduction. A number of wing planforms were discussed and a number of different airfoils sections as well as the surface smoothness of the wing skin panels was analyzed. It was eventually decided to go for a straight tapered wing planform, as it had almost as low lift induced drag as a pure elliptical wing. More about this later. A number of wind tunnel tests were performed at the newly established Aeronautical Research Institute, FFA. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any of the reports. Any help would be appreciated.
The go ahead was given from the Governmental procurement office in March 11, 1941 to start the development of 2 prototypes. This also meant that the organization was moving into new facilities close to Bromma Airport.
The prototypesThe design and trade studies continued and work on the first prototype started in October 1941. The first prototype was finished about a year later, September 3rd 1942. Taxi tests started September 18th. First flight was September 20th. The first flight was performed by Major Enderlein, Chief Test Pilot of the Swedish Airforce, and the first flight lasted 40 minutes.
Prototype number 1, s/n 22001. (Ref. 18) Major Enderlein's impression of the aircraft was that it was a nice flying aircraft and did not have any bad characteristics despite the relatively high wing loading. The aircraft was easy to take off and land and the relation between stability and stick forces seemed appropriate for this type of aircraft. Visibility during take off and landing was good, but during taxiing it was not as good. The second prototype, 22002, had been developed in parallel with the first one and first flight took place on June 11th 1943. The first prototype crashed on the 19th of June 1943 after a series of dive tests. The pilot, Lt Salwén, perished. The second prototype crashed due to deliberate sabotage. The engine stopped during final approach and the pilot ditched the aircraft, but survived. During investigation, it was discovered that someone deliberately had put pieces of cloth in the fuel system... Most of the following test flights were performed with the third production aircraft, s/n 22103.
Production
The assembly facilities at FFVS. (Ref. 18)
The whole aircraft consisted of 17,000 parts of which 12,000 were manufactured by 500 different subcontractors. It was a long and costly process to manage and administrate the subcontractors. When everything finally worked out, it was time to end the production in the spring of 1945. Due to a Union strike the program was delayed several months after the planned ending of the program.
The first 4 production aircraft, s/n 22101-22104, were almost completely manufactured and assembled at FFVS, due to the difficulties with the subcontractors. First flight of the first production aircraft, s/n 22101, was in September 1943. Production was moved to CVA (The Central Workshop at Arboga) in July 1944. The first CVA manufactured J22 was delivered November 20th 1945 and the last aircraft was delivered April 6th, 1946. A total of 200 aircraft were built, 2 prototypes and 198 production aircraft. FFVS manufactured 182 aircraft and CVA manufactured 18. The J22 first entered service at the F9 Wing outside Göteborg in October 1943.
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