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78-496: The company was formed by the 1964 merger of two German aerospace firms, Focke-Wulf and Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH (Weserflug). The formation of VFW was a natural outcome, as the two companies had been collaborating, along with Hamburger Flugzeugbau (HFB), in the rocket technology development alliance Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO) group since 1961, the move was seen as a natural fit. Such collaborative efforts continued throughout VFW's operating years, not just through ERNO but also with

156-474: A T-tail in favour of a conventional unit, furnished with a low-set vertical stabilizer and dihedral , has been accredited to Fokker's input into the programme. By the time that full-scale production of the VFW 614 had been approved in 1970, VFW had opted to merge its fledgling commercial aircraft activities with those of Fokker, creating the joint venture company VFW-Fokker GmbH for this purpose; this entity has

234-569: A boxcar . Similarly, their pilots were given less training in combat maneuvers, and more in radio-directed pursuit. The Soviets' main interceptor was initially the Su-9 , which was followed by the Su-15 and the MiG-25 "Foxbat". The auxiliary Tu-128 , an area range interceptor, was notably the heaviest fighter aircraft ever to see service in the world. The latest and most advanced interceptor aircraft in

312-504: A Fiat G.91 replacement, which came under a NATO requirement, known as NBMR-3 , was a crucial trigger and greatly influenced the development programme that would lead to VFW's VTOL effort, designated as the VAK 191B . Initially, Italian aircraft manufacturer Fiat was also a participating company in VFW, however, Italy later chose to withdraw from the joint development agreement with Germany during 1967. Despite this decision, Fiat remained as

390-485: A brief period of time they fared rapid development in both speed, range, and altitude. At the end of the 1960s, a nuclear attack became unstoppable with the introduction of ballistic missiles capable of approaching from outside the atmosphere at speeds as high as 3 to 4 miles per second (5 to 7 km/s). The doctrine of mutually assured destruction replaced the trend of defense strengthening, making interceptors less strategically logical. The utility of interceptors waned as

468-462: A chosen aspect of performance. A "point defense interceptor" is of a lightweight design, intended to spend most of its time on the ground located at the defended target, and able to launch on demand, climb to altitude, manoeuvre and then attack the bomber in a very short time, before the bomber can deploy its weapons. At the end of Second World War, the Luftwaffe ' s most critical requirement

546-459: A command centre in the Horse Guards building. The Pup proved to have too low performance to easily intercept Gotha G.IV bombers, and the superior Sopwith Camels supplanted them. The term "interceptor" was in use by 1929. Through the 1930s, bomber aircraft speeds increased so much that conventional interceptor tactics appeared impossible. Visual and acoustic detection from the ground had

624-500: A major stakeholder from Focke-Wulf A.G. and reconstitution followed resulting in the privatized company Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH. Focke-Wulf formally merged with Weserflug in 1964, becoming Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW), which after several further mergers became the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company N.V. (EADS) . EADS was later renamed as Airbus SE . In early 2021 Focke Wulf Aircraft

702-409: A major sub-contractor for the venture, being responsible for the production of various structural elements such as wings, tailplanes and some of the fuselage. However, even prior to the first flight of the type, the programme had been heavily affected by political changes. Amongst these were the effective irrelevance of the original NBRM-3 requirement and the decreasing importance of the strike mission as

780-967: A major subcontractor for the Fw 190. Those plants used many foreign and forced labourers , and from 1944 also prisoners of war . Focke-Wulf's 100-acre (0.40 km ) plant at Marienburg produced approximately half of all Fw 190s and was bombed by the Eighth Air Force on 9 October 1943. Many Focke-Wulf workers, including Kurt Tank , worked at the Instituto Aerotécnico in Córdoba, Argentina between 1947 and 1955. Others, like Henrich Focke , went to Brazil's Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, helping Brazil's effort to build Embraer . Focke-Wulf began to make gliders in 1951, and in 1955, motorised planes. Focke-Wulf, Weserflug and Hamburger Flugzeugbau joined forces in 1961 to form

858-472: A much larger area from attack, depending on greater detection capabilities, both in the aircraft themselves and operating with AWACS, rather than high speed to reach targets. The exemplar of this concept was the Tupolev Tu-28 . The later Panavia Tornado ADV was able to achieve long range in a smaller airframe through the use of more efficient engines. Rather than focusing on acceleration and climb rate,

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936-694: A pair of proposals for interceptor aircraft, the first such designation in the US. One proposal was for a single-engine fighter, the other for a twin-engine. Both were required to reach an altitude of 20,000 feet (6,100 m) in six minutes as a defense against bomber attack. Kelsey said later that he used the interceptor designation to sidestep a hard USAAC policy restricting fighters to 500 pounds (230 kg) of armament. He wished for at least 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of armament so that American fighters could dominate their battles against all opponents, fighters included. The two aircraft resulting from these proposals were

1014-562: A plaque in the Böttcherstraße street of Bremen . The Fw 190 Würger (Shrike/butcher-bird), designed from 1938 on, and produced in quantity from early 1941–1945, was a mainstay single-seat fighter for the Luftwaffe during World War II . Repeated bombing of Bremen in World War II resulted in the mass-production plants being moved to eastern Germany and General Government , with AGO Flugzeugwerke of Oschersleben as

1092-510: A range of only a few miles, which meant that an interceptor would have insufficient time to climb to altitude before the bombers reached their targets. Standing combat air patrols were possible but only at great cost. The conclusion at the time was that " the bomber will always get through ". The invention of radar made possible early, long-range detection of aircraft on the order of 100 miles (160 km), both day and night and in all weather. A typical bomber might take twenty minutes to cross

1170-457: A result of a German government decision to abandon the nuclear role, a divergence of opinion between partner countries, the withdrawal of the Italian government from participation during August 1967, and a growing awareness of the programme's escalating costs. At one stage, the Italian government had agreed to take on 40 per cent of the programme's development costs, thus their departure meant that

1248-468: A sizable contract for a total of 160 C-160s was signed, comprising 110 for Germany and 50 for France. Manufacturing work was split between Germany and France in line with the number of orders placed; Nord built the wings and engine nacelles, VFW the centre fuselage and horizontal tail, and HFB the forward and rear fuselage. The aircraft's tail fin was also built by Dornier . Three separate production lines were established to assemble these components at each of

1326-619: A step and roughly doubled operational altitudes. Although radars also improved in performance, the gap between offense and defense was dramatically reduced. Large attacks could so confuse the defense's ability to communicate with pilots that the classic method of manual ground controlled interception was increasingly seen as inadequate. In the United States, this led to the introduction of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment to computerize this task, while in

1404-575: A substantial amount of funding was lost for the venture. The emergence of a new German/American "Advanced Vertical Strike" (AVS) programme also diminished the type's perceived value; the prospective aircraft which was on offer from the Americans via a cooperative venture with Germany somewhat eclipsed the VAK 191B in the eyes of the German Air Force and served to effectively undermine support for

1482-453: A very high fuel consumption. This led fighter prototypes emphasizing acceleration and operational ceiling, with a sacrifice on the loiter time, essentially limiting them to point defense role. Such were the mixed jet/rocket power Republic XF-91 or Saunders Roe SR.53 . The Soviet and Western trials with zero-length launch were also related. None of these found practical use. Designs that depended solely on jet engines achieved more success with

1560-446: Is that interceptors often look very impressive on paper, typically outrunning, outclimbing and outgunning slower fighter designs. However, pure interceptors fare poorly in fighter-to-fighter combat against the same "less capable" designs due to limited maneuverability especially at low altitudes and speeds. In the spectrum of various interceptors, one design approach especially shows sacrifices necessary to achieve decisive benefit in

1638-645: The Convair F-106 Delta Dart , Sukhoi Su-15 , and English Electric Lightning . Through the 1960s and 1970s, the rapid improvements in design led to most air-superiority and multirole fighters , such as the Grumman F-14 Tomcat and McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle , having the performance to take on the point defense interception role, and the strategic threat moved from bombers to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Dedicated interceptor designs became increasingly rare, with

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1716-544: The Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO) to develop rockets. ITT Corporation , which had acquired a 25% stake in the company prior to the war, won $ 27 million in compensation in the 1960s for the damage that was inflicted on its share of the Focke-Wulf plant by WWII Allied bombing. Colonel Sosthenes Behn , Ludwig Roselius and Barbara Goette outfoxed Hitler in 1936 when he tried to have Roselius removed as

1794-601: The F-104 Starfighter (initial A version) and the English Electric Lightning . The role of crewed point defense designs was reassigned to uncrewed interceptors— surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)—which first reached an adequate level in 1954–1957. SAM advancements ended the concept of massed high-altitude bomber operations, in favor of penetrators (and later cruise missiles ) flying a combination of techniques colloquially known as "flying below

1872-627: The F-86D and F-89 Scorpion . In the late 1940s ADC started a project to build a much more advanced interceptor under the 1954 interceptor effort, which eventually delivered the F-106 Delta Dart after a lengthy development process. Further replacements were studied, notably the NR-349 proposal during the 1960s, but came to nothing as the USSR strengthened their strategic force with ICBMs. Hence,

1950-651: The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 . It is one of the predecessor companies of today's Airbus . The company was founded in Bremen on 24 October 1923 as Bremer Flugzeugbau AG by Prof. Henrich Focke , Georg Wulf and Dr. rer. pol. Werner Naumann . Almost immediately, they renamed the company Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG (later Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH). Focke-Wulf merged, under government pressure, with Albatros Flugzeugwerke of Berlin in 1931. The Albatros Flugzeugwerke engineer and test pilot Kurt Tank became head of

2028-554: The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet , which was the only rocket-powered, crewed military aircraft to see combat. To a lesser degree, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 , which had heavy armament specifically intended for anti-bomber missions, was also a specialized day interceptor. Night fighters and bomber destroyers are interceptors of the heavy type, although initially they were rarely referred to as such. In

2106-660: The Berlin branch of Focke-Wulf. Then in October 1933, Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau A.G. Albatros Berlin was officially registered with the Department of Trade. Dr Roselius always remained the driving force of Focke-Wulf. He and his closest collaborator, Barbara Goette , often met with technical director Professor Kurt Tank. When Roselius died in May 1943, Heinrich Puvogel (later chair of Focke-Wulf) raised 4 million RM and continued handling

2184-524: The Dutch aircraft producer Fokker , who formed a joint venture with the firm, VFW-Fokker GmbH, during 1969 to promote. Collaboration with Fokker waned substantially over the years, having been greatly soured by the poor results of the VFW 614 programme, resulting in VFW-Fokker GmbH being wound up in 1980. During 1981, VFW was acquired by its domestic rival, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), and

2262-429: The Dutch sales team having paid the type little heed, even allegedly regarding it as a competitor to Fokker's established product lines for orders, and that salesmen had prioritised the promotion of Dutch-designed airliners instead. Reportedly, some Dutch managers did hold a preference for their own aircraft, regarding them as established successes and the VFW 614 as a waste of effort to market; furthermore, Dutch management

2340-586: The European Ariane space launch system and the International Space Station . During June 2003, this unit became part of EADS SPACE Transportation . Focke-Wulf Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG ( German pronunciation: [ˌfɔkəˈvʊlf] ) was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II . Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of

2418-476: The F-106 ended up serving as the primary USAF interceptor into the 1980s. As the F-106 was retired, intercept missions were assigned to the contemporary F-15 and F-16 fighters, among their other roles. The F-16, however, was originally designed for air superiority while evolving into a versatile multirole fighter. The F-15, with its Mach 2.5 maximum speed enabling it to intercept the fastest enemy aircraft (namely

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2496-750: The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom as its primary interceptor from the mid-1970s, with the air defence variant (ADV) of the Panavia Tornado being introduced in the 1980s. The Tornado was eventually replaced with a multirole design, the Eurofighter Typhoon . The Shenyang J-8 is a high-speed, high-altitude Chinese-built single-seat interceptor. Initially designed in the early 1960s to counter US-built B-58 Hustler bombers, F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers and Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance planes, it still retains

2574-669: The MiG-25 Foxbat), is also not a pure interceptor as it has exceptional agility for dogfighting based upon the lessons learned from Vietnam; the F-15E Strike Eagle variant adds air interdiction while retaining the interception and air-to-air combat of other F-15s. Presently, the F-22 is the USA's latest combat aircraft that serves in part as an interceptor due to its Mach 2+ speed as well as supercruise capabilities, however it

2652-673: The Soviet (now Russian) inventory is the MiG-31 "Foxhound". Improving on some of the flaws on the proceeding MiG-25, the MiG-31 has better low altitude and low speed performance, in addition to carrying an internal cannon. Russia, despite merging the PVO into the VVS, continues to maintain its dedicated MiG-31 interceptor fleet. In 1937, USAAC lieutenants Gordon P. Saville and Benjamin S. Kelsey devised

2730-490: The Spanish aircraft manufacturer CASA to form European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), which rebranded itself as the multinational Airbus Group in 2015. Into the twenty-first century, the Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO)/VFW descendant has continued to be active as the space infrastructure division of Airbus's Astrium business unit. Amongst its activities, the company has contributed various components of both

2808-462: The UK it led to enormously powerful radars to improve detection time. The introduction of the first useful surface to air missiles in the 1950s obviated the need for fast reaction time interceptors as the missile could launch almost instantly. Air forces increasingly turned to much larger interceptor designs, with enough fuel for longer endurance, leaving the point-defense role to the missiles. This led to

2886-599: The abandonment of a number of short-range designs like the Avro Arrow and Convair F-102 in favor of much larger and longer-ranged designs like the North American F-108 and MiG-25 . In the 1950s and 1960’s during the Cold War , a strong interceptor force was crucial for the opposing superpowers as it was the best means to defend against an unexpected nuclear attack by strategic bombers . Hence, for

2964-470: The ability to 'sprint' at Mach 2+ speeds, and later versions can carry medium-range PL-12/SD-10 MRAAM missiles for interception purposes. The PLAAF/PLANAF currently still operates approximately 300 or so J-8s of various configurations. Several other countries also introduced interceptor designs, although in the 1950s–1960s several planned interceptors never came to fruition, with the expectation that missiles would replace bombers. The Argentine FMA I.Ae. 37

3042-458: The aircraft themselves. They were first to introduce all-weather avionics , assuring successful operations during night, rain, snow, or fog. Countries that were strategically dependent on surface fleet, most notably US and UK, maintained also fleet defense fighters , such as the F-14 Tomcat . During the Cold War , an entire military service, not just an arm of the pre-existing air force,

3120-468: The airline to purchase it. According to authors H. Dienel and P. Lyth, Lufthansa's lack of interest in the type was attributed as having been a major factor in the commercial failure of the VFW 614. According to author Mark E. Mendenhall, the management within VFW-Fokker was divided and split along national lines; while a number of German figures within the company attributed the poor sales performance to

3198-697: The bombing raids. Rocket-boosted variants of both of Germany's jet fighters; the Me 262 in its "C" subtype series, all nicknamed "home protector" ( Heimatschützer , in four differing formats) and the planned He 162 E subtype, using one of the same BMW 003R turbojet/rocket "mixed-power" engine as the Me 262C-2b Heimatschützer II , but were never produced in quantity. In the initial stage of Cold War , bombers were expected to attack flying higher and faster, even at transonic speeds. Initial transonic and supersonic fighters had modest internal fuel tanks in their slim fuselages, but

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3276-631: The defending fighters. The Me 163 required an airbase, however, which were soon under constant attack. Following the Emergency Fighter Program , the Germans developed even odder designs, such as the Bachem Ba 349 Natter , which launched vertically and thus eliminated the need for an airbase. In general all these initial German designs proved difficult to operate, often becoming death traps for their pilots, and had little effect on

3354-547: The defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft . Aircraft that are capable of being or are employed as both "standard" air superiority fighters and as interceptors are sometimes known as fighter-interceptors . There are two general classes of interceptor: light fighters , designed for high performance over short range; and heavy fighters , which are intended to operate over longer ranges , in contested airspace and adverse meteorological conditions . While

3432-458: The design emphasis is on range and missile carrying capacity, which together translate into combat endurance, look-down/shoot-down radars good enough to detect and track fast moving interdictors against ground clutter , and the capability to provide guidance to air-to-air missiles (AAM) against these targets. High speed and acceleration was put into long-range and medium-range AAMs, and agility into short range dog fighting AAMs, rather than into

3510-464: The detection zone of early radar systems, time enough for interceptor fighters to start up, climb to altitude and engage the bombers. Ground controlled interception required constant contact between the interceptor and the ground until the bombers became visible to the pilots and nationwide networks like the Dowding system were built in the late 1930s to coordinate these efforts. During World War II

3588-413: The distinction of being Europe's first transnational aircraft company. As envisioned, Fokker's established civil sales unit and support infrastructure was to be used to support the VFW 614 programme; however, the union has been regarded by some commentators as having been an 'unhappy arrangement'. The programme suffered several early blows, including the loss of the first prototype on 1 February 1972, which

3666-540: The early Cold War era the combination of jet -powered bombers and nuclear weapons created air force demand for highly capable interceptors; it is in regards to this period that the term is perhaps most recognized and used. Cold War-era interceptors became increasingly distinct from their air superiority counterparts, with the former often sacrificing range, endurance, and maneuverability for speed, rate of climb , and armament dedicated to attacking large strategic bombers . Examples of classic interceptors of this era include

3744-405: The effectiveness of interceptor aircraft meant that bombers often needed to be escorted by long range fighter aircraft. Many aircraft were able to be fitted with Aircraft interception radar , further facilitating the interception of enemy aircraft. The introduction of jet power increased flight speeds from around 300 miles per hour (500 km/h) to around 600 miles per hour (1,000 km/h) in

3822-407: The external fuel lines were detached. However, keeping QRA aircraft at this state of readiness was physically and mentally draining to the pilots and was expensive in terms of fuel. As an alternative, longer-range designs with extended loiter times were considered. These area defense interceptors or area defense fighters were in general larger designs intended to stay on lengthy patrol and protect

3900-576: The financial affairs of Focke-Wulf as chief of Seehandel A.G. Hanna Reitsch demonstrated the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 , the first fully controllable helicopter (as opposed to autogyro ), in Berlin in 1938. The four-engined Fw 200 airliner flew nonstop between Berlin and New York City on 10 August 1938, making the journey in 24 hours and 56 minutes. It was the first aircraft to fly that route without stopping. The return trip on 13 August 1938, took 19 hours and 47 minutes. These flights are commemorated with

3978-471: The first production VFW 614 made its first flight; it was delivered to Denmark's Cimber Air four months later. However, perhaps the most major potential customer, West Germany's flagcarrier airline Lufthansa , declined to procure any VFW 614s; the company having prioritised the development of its long haul routes, for which the type was not applicable, while the German government had also declined to pressure

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4056-653: The interceptor role until it received upgrades in the 1990s for ground attack. Both the fighter and the Phoenix missile were retired in 2006. The British Royal Air Force operated a supersonic day fighter, the English Electric Lightning , alongside the Gloster Javelin in the subsonic night/all-weather role . Efforts to replace the Javelin with a supersonic design under Operational Requirement F.155 came to naught. The UK operated its own, highly adapted version of

4134-598: The interceptor role. Day interceptors have been used in a defensive role since World War I , and are perhaps best known from major actions like the Battle of Britain , when the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane were part of a successful defensive strategy. However, dramatic improvements in both ground-based and airborne radar gave greater flexibility to existing fighters and few later designs were conceived as dedicated day interceptors. Exceptions include

4212-403: The new transport. A single prototype was built by each of the production partners, with the first (built by Nord) flying on 25 May 1963, with the VFW and HFB-built prototypes following on 25 May 1963 and 19 February 1964. These were followed by six pre-production examples, stretched by 51 centimetres (20 in) compared with the prototypes, which flew between 1965 and 1966. On 24 September 1964,

4290-668: The only widely used examples designed after the 1960s being the Panavia Tornado ADV , Mikoyan MiG-25 , Mikoyan MiG-31 , and the Shenyang J-8 . The first interceptor squadrons were formed during World War I to defend London against attacks by Zeppelins and later against fixed-wing long-range bombers . Early units generally used aircraft withdrawn from front-line service, notably the Sopwith Pup . They were told about their target's location before take-off from

4368-436: The overall mission time, there were few ways to reduce this. During the Cold War in times of heightened tensions, quick reaction alert (QRA) aircraft were kept piloted, fully fueled and armed, with the engines running at idle on the runway ready to take off. The aircraft being kept topped up with fuel via hoses from underground fuel tanks. If a possible intruder was identified, the aircraft would be ready to take off as soon as

4446-422: The programme. During 1968, VFW decided that the VAK 191B should be reclassified as an experimental programme, and that the aircraft should principally function only as a technology demonstrator . The initial programme had called for the construction of three single-seater and three two-seater aircraft; however, amid escalating costs, this intended test batch was first converted to become six single-seat aircraft, and

4524-567: The radar". By flying terrain masking low-altitude nap-of-the-earth flight profiles the effective range, and therefore reaction time, of ground-based radar was limited to at best the radar horizon . In the case of ground radar systems this can be countered by placing radar systems on mountain tops to extend the radar horizon, or through placing high performance radars in interceptors or in AWACS aircraft used to direct point defense interceptors. As capabilities continued to improve – especially through

4602-404: The role merged with that of the heavy air superiority fighter . The interceptor mission is, by its nature, a difficult one. Consider the desire to protect a single target from attack by long-range bombers. The bombers have the advantage of being able to select the parameters of the mission – attack vector, speed and altitude. This results in an enormous area from which the attack can originate. In

4680-450: The second type was exemplified historically by specialized night fighter and all-weather interceptor designs, the integration of mid-air refueling, satellite navigation, on-board radar, and beyond visual range (BVR) missile systems since the 1960s has allowed most frontline fighter designs to fill the roles once reserved for specialized night/all-weather fighters. For daytime operations, conventional light fighters have normally filled

4758-436: The single-engine Bell P-39 Airacobra and the twin-engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning . Both aircraft were successful during World War II in standard fighter roles, not specifically assigned to point defense against bombers. From 1946 to 1980 the United States maintained a dedicated Aerospace Defense Command , consisting primarily of dedicated interceptors. Many post-war designs were of limited performance, including designs like

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4836-569: The technical department and started work on the Fw 44 Stieglitz (Goldfinch). Dr Ludwig Roselius became Chairman in 1925 and handed over to his brother Friedrich in early 1933. In 1938 Roselius' HAG combine increased its shareholding to 46% and C. Lorenz AG secured 28%. The company was reconstituted as Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH and no longer had to publish its accounts. A substantial capital injection occurred at this time. In August 1933 Hans Holle and Rudolf Schubert were given power of attorney over

4914-577: The three main partners. The first production airframes were delivered to France and Germany from 1967. The first batch included 110 C-160D s for the German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ), 50 C-160F s for the French Air Force , and nine C-160Z s for the South African Air Force . Four C-160Fs were converted to C-160P air mail transport aircraft, and were operated by Air France . Production continued until October 1972. Production of

4992-486: The time it takes for the bombers to cross the distance from first detection to being on their targets, the interceptor must be able to start, take off, climb to altitude, maneuver for attack and then attack the bomber. A dedicated interceptor aircraft sacrifices the capabilities of the air superiority fighter and multirole fighter (i.e., countering enemy fighter aircraft in air combat manoeuvring ), by tuning its performance for either fast climbs or high speeds. The result

5070-453: The type persisted throughout VFW's existence, and for several years further through its successors. During 1981, VFW was acquired by, and subsequently integrated into, the German aerospace company Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), which in its turn was taken over by DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA) in 1989. In July 2000, DASA merged with the French aerospace company Aerospatiale-Matra and

5148-420: The widespread introduction of the jet engine and the adoption of high speed, low level flight profiles, the time available between detection and interception dropped. Most advanced point defence interceptors combined with long-range radars were struggling to keep the reaction time down enough to be effective. Fixed times, like the time needed for the pilot to climb into the cockpit, became an increasing portion of

5226-472: Was a prototype jet fighter developed during the 1950s. It never flew and was cancelled in 1960. The Canadian subsonic Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck served in numbers through 1950s. Its supersonic replacement, the CF-105 Arrow ("Avro Arrow"), was controversially cancelled in 1959. The Swedish Saab 35 Draken was specifically designed for intercepting aircraft passing Swedish airspace at high altitudes in

5304-487: Was a somewhat logical outcome. During 1964, two such companies, Focke-Wulf and Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH (Weserflug), opted to merge, the resulting combined entity that emerged being Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW), based at Bremen , Germany. A key programme undertaken by VFW was the VFW 614 short-haul airliner, which had been proposed prior to its formation by its predecessor companies. The basic design of this aircraft

5382-470: Was alleged by Mendenhall to have interfered with the firm's marketing structure to curtail independence and maintain support for their own aircraft. At the time of VFW's formation, the company's management was heavy interested in developing its own VTOL strike aircraft. Around this era, multiple companies had been working on their own conceptual designs for VTOL-capable interceptor aircraft ; in order for these designs to be operationally relevant and viable, it

5460-399: Was attributed to an instance of elevator flutter. VFW had also taken the relatively bold decision to develop both an entirely new airframe and a new engine in parallel; the latter element being impacted by Rolls-Royce 's bankruptcy in 1971, effectively threatening the supply of the only suitable engines for the airliner. By February 1975, only ten aircraft had been ordered. During April 1975,

5538-544: Was designated for deployment of interceptors. The aircraft of the Soviet Air Defence Forces (PVO-S) differed from those of the Soviet Air Forces (VVS) in that they were by no means small or crudely simple, but huge and refined with large, sophisticated radars; they could not take off from grass, only concrete runways; they could not be disassembled and shipped back to a maintenance center in

5616-652: Was designed primarily as a stealth air superiority fighter. In the 1950s, the United States Navy led an unsuccessful F6D Missileer project. Later it launched the development of a large F-111B fleet air defense fighter, but this project was cancelled too. Finally, the role was assigned to the F-14 Tomcat , carrying AIM-54 Phoenix missiles. Like the USAF's F-15, the USN's F-14 was also designed primarily as an air superiority (fighter-to-fighter combat) and F-14s served

5694-522: Was for interceptors as the Commonwealth and American air forces pounded German targets night and day. As the bombing effort grew, notably in early 1944, the Luftwaffe introduced a rocket-powered design, the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet , in the very-short-range interceptor role. The engine allowed about 7 minutes of powered flight, but offered such tremendous performance that they could fly right by

5772-489: Was heavily influenced by the pre-war American piston-engine Douglas DC-3 passenger aircraft. During 1968, having secured considerable financial backing from the West German Government, the programme was given the go-ahead. The VFW 614 was considerably shaped by technical assistance provided by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker ; several early changes to the VFW 614's design, including the discarding of

5850-513: Was largely integrated into it. Through various mergers and acquisitions, the present-day successor company to VFW is the multinational Airbus Group . The firm's space-based activities under ERNO has also been integrated into one of Airbus's operating divisions. During the early 1960s, the government of West Germany promoted the reorganisation and consolidation of its aircraft manufacturing sector; furthermore, as many of these companies were already collaborating on various programmes, such integration

5928-639: Was later on cut down to only involve three single-seat aircraft following Italy's withdrawal. Likely the most impactful and successor programme that VFW was involved in was the Transall C-160 military transport aircraft. It was developed and manufactured by a consortium, Transporter-Allianz or Transall , which had been formed in January 1959 between the French company Nord Aviation and the German companies Weser Flugzeugbau (which later merged into VFW) and Hamburger Flugzeugbau (HFB) to design and build

6006-496: Was re-registered as a trademark across the EU, the UK and Australia as a retailer of aviation watches and associated official Focke Wulf merchandise. In alphabetical order: Note: Official RLM designations had the prefix "8-", but this was usually dropped and replaced with the manufacturer's prefix. Interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft , or simply interceptor , is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for

6084-582: Was recognised that it would be necessary for the flight performance to equal that of conventional interceptors of the era, such as the contemporary Lockheed F-104G Starfighter . Over time, two separate and distinct requirements emerged, one calling for a VTOL-capable successor to the F-104G interceptor while the other sought a VTOL successor to the Italian Fiat G.91 ground-attack fighter. According to aerospace publication Flight International , this call for

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