Copyright 2012 by Brandon Cope
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Fokker A.III autogyro light bomber
In the late 1920's, Fokker began to test the military application of
autogyros. After a few aircraft of limited military applications, the
combat autogyro first to enter production was
the A.III, a multi-crew light bomber, in 1935.While it had four
defensive machine guns and a useful load of 1,000 kg of bombs, it's
poor speed
(240 kph) and range (640 km) hampered it's use (although on mainland
Europe, the short range was less of an issue than it would have been
elsewhere). It was envisioned that the A.III would be deployed from
small fields (a soccer field could easily handle several aircraft) near
the borders of the Netherlands, to strike at any hostile forces
(ie, German) attempting to cross into Dutch territory. Fighter planes
deployed from
more distant airfields would provide cover if needed. A total of
80 were built, with over half still in service in 1940. By then, the
A.III was badly outdated and most were shot down. However, six or seven
survived and were taken over by the Germans, for unknown purposes. A
few had been transferred to Java and saw use against the Japanese.
Crew consists of a pilot,
bombardier/navigator (who operates either beam MG), dorsal gunner/radio
operator, and ventral gunner.
The A.III uses 33.6 gallons of aviation fuel per hour.
Subassemblies: Huge Helicopter Chassis +3, Rotors -1, three
fixed Wheels +1
P&P: 746 kW HP gasoline engines w/746-kW prop, 150 gallon
standard tanks [Body]
Occ: 4
CS
Cargo: 3.
| Armor |
F |
R/L |
B |
T |
U |
| Body |
2/2 |
2/2 |
2/2 |
2/2 |
2/2 |
| Rotors |
3/10 |
3/10 |
3/10 |
3/10 |
3/10 |
| Wheels |
3/5 |
3/5 |
3/5 |
3/5 |
3/5 |
Weaponry
2*Aircraft LMG [Body:R,L] (500 each)
Aircraft LMG [Body:B] (500)
Aircraft LMG [Body:U] (500)
Equipment
Body: Medium range radio receiver and transmitter, bomb sight,
navigational
instruments, 2,200-lb hardpoint.
Statistics
| Size: 70'x50'x12' |
Payload: 2.04 tons |
Lwt: 4.31 tons |
Volume: 400
|
Maint.: 62 hours |
Price: $10,300 |
HT: 12
HP: 360 [body], 100 [each rotor], 30 [each wheel]
aSpeed: 150
|
aAccel: 5
|
aDecel: 8
|
aMR: 2
|
aSR: 1
|
Stall: 31 mph |
Take-off roll (loaded): 36 yards. Landing roll (loaded): 12 yards
Take-off roll (no bombs, max fuel): 23 yards. Landing roll (no bombs,
10% fuel): 5 yards
Design Notes
Design speed was 164 mph, which was reduced to the maximum of 150 mph
for a rotary wing aircraft.
To save weight, some planes omitted the ventral gunner (the bombardier
manned this crew position, if needed, resulting in him being extremely
overworked).
To better match historical autogyros, rotor area was raised to the 1.75
power in stall calculations and 1.5 power in speed calculations.
Takeoff was divided by 3 and landing distances by 10.