Hi, please excuse my English
Finland ordered the T.VIII WC version, which is described as being larger (1.8m) than the standard T.VIII W. They were never delivered, but taken by the Luftwaffe.
I can find no photos or illustrations of this model. For an airplane of only 13m long the addition of almost 2m seems too much. Did it retain the same floats or were they larger too?
Does anyone have any illustrations?
Thanks
I don't know whether, or by how much, the floats were increased, but likely they have been increased as the aircraft empty weight increased from 6,834 to 10,000 lbs, while the loaded weight increased from 11,030 to 15,430 lbs, an increase by 40 %.
Length increased by 6 ft, wingspan increased by 6 ft 7 inch, height increased by 1 ft 3.5 inch.
One of the Finnish requirements was that the aircraft should have an interchangeable float/wheel/ski undercarriage. As a result four aircraft were built with floats, designated T.VIII-W/C and one was built with a fixed undercarriage, designated T.VIII-L.
T.VIII-W/C during a taxiing trial with M. Beeling in the nose section:
Excellent, thanks Hans.
Aircraft looks unbalanced, just too long at the rear. I had assumed there was an extension to the nose, not just a longer tail.
If you look carefully, you'll notice that the finnish engines are slightly longer than the original ones. Did they have a second row of cylinders? Maybe that would account for the correction in the center of gravity (CoG) to compensate for the longer aft fuselage.