The FW-190 was a fighter that was developed just prior to the start of WWII and incorporated several traits that improved on the then-current Luftwaffe fighter, the Bf-109. Due to a shortage of Daimler Benz engines for other aircraft types, the designers decided to go with a fairly compact 14 cylinder, two-row BMW radial engine. This engine produced sufficient power, but ran into issues with overheating, though that was cured by simply re-routing exhaust. In addition, the aircraft had a wide track landing gear that helped to overcomes the fairly large number of ground handling accidents that the 109s narrower gear was prone to. The aircraft was also fairly heavily armed and was able to out-perform the 109 in nearly all aspects of flight.

This book, the first in a series, covers the events leading up to the development of the 190 as well as the various prototypes and its entry into service. All the radial engine variants are covered, delineating the differences between them not only externally, but any internal changes. Like all planes that have seen a fairly long service, combat experience helped to further refine the airfame as time went along. The 190 was also used for a wide variety of weapons experiments and all of those are covered.

A nice touch are some period color photos and a center section that provides color profiles of all the variants of the aircraft. Add to this a number of well chosen period photos and prose that flows well and you have a very nice introductory volume on this staple of the Luftwaffe in the last half of WWII. Well worth picking up.

February 2022

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