In October 1936, the German Air Ministry asked for a He 114 replacement. The only stipulations were that it would use the BMW 132, and they wanted prototypes in both twin-float and single-float configurations. Designs were received from Dornier, Gotha, Arado and Focke-Wulf. Heinkel declined to tender, contending that the He 114 could still be made to work.
With the exception of the Arado design, they were all conventional biplanes. That gave the Arado better performance than any of the others, and the RLM ordered four prototypes. The RLM was also rather conservative by nature, so they also ordered two of the Focke-Wulf Fw 62 design as a backup. It quickly became clear that the Arado would work effectively, and only four prototypes of the Fw 62 were built.
The Ar 196 prototypes were all delivered in summer 1937, V1 (which flew in May) and V2 with twin floats as A models, and V3 and V4 on a single float as B models. Both versions demonstrated excellent water handling, and there seemed to be little to decide one over the other. Since there was a possibility of the smaller outrigger floats on the B models"digging in", the twin-float A model was ordered into production. A single additional prototype, V5, was produced in November 1938 to test final changes.
The final production version was the A-5 from 1943, which changed radios and cockpit instruments, and switched the rear gun to the much-improved MG 81Z. In all versions, 541 Ar 196s (526 production models) were built before production ended in August 1944, about 100 of these from SNCA and Fokker plants.
The 14th volume of the Topdrawings series is focused on the Arado Ar 196, German shipboard reconnaissance float plane. The 20 page, A4 size booklet contains 10 sheets of 1:48 scale drawings, 5 sheets of 1:72 scale drawings (which include a specification of external changes in various versions of the aircraft) and colour profiles of 4 planes, all with English and Polish captions.
- ISBN10 8362878134
- ISBN13 9788362878130
- Publish Date 15 January 2013
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 29 July 2016
- Publish Country PL
- Imprint Kagero Oficyna Wydawnicza
- Format Paperback
- Pages 16
- Language English