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| New Horizons | |
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He then contacted Argentine agents, and he was offered a new residence in
this country; using false documents he managed to escape from Germany
through Denmark and then flew to Argentina in October, 1947. Gradually, Tank invited other German specialists to emigrate to Argentina and so he gathered a group of about 60 colaborators in both Aerodynamics and Structures; the idea was to build a jet fighter powered with the Nene engine, which was the most efficient available at that times; disponibility of it would be no problem then, because the British were in very good relations with Argentina, the country that had helped them with large shipments of food during the war. |
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The Jet powered Arrow | |
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In fact, a project for a swept wing fighter was already in development
in Argentina, under the guidance of local engineers Norberto L. Morchio
and Humberto J. Ricciardi, the same team that had designed the straight
winged Pulqui I . The new project had been named
IA 27a "Pulqui II" (Pulqui means "Poisoned Arrow") and had a wing of moderate sweep, installed in low
position in a long circular fuselage, with an air intake at the nose. With the arrival of the German team to the Instituto Aerotecnico, they brought all the new technology of the "mistified" swept wing.
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Tank's TA-183 I/II were absolutely unsuitable
projects for the wide Nene engine; they had been designed for the axial
German jet turbines.
But many elements from these projects,
like the extremely swept wing and empennages, could be used.
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![[three views of Ta-183]](tc183dls.jpg)
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| three views of Ta-183 I | |
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For some time, the local project team and the German one continued an
almost independent work, until a meeting with the director of
Instituto Aerotecnico, when it was decided to join all the design work
made up to that moment, and put it all under the guidance of Tank;
in that way, some elements of the project of Morchio-Ricciardi remained
in the definitive IA-33 project. Under the guidance of the Tank team, people at Instituto Aerotecnico obtained the desing of an aircraft with long cylindrical fuselage, somewhat widened at the back section, with Ta-183 I type of empennages, and almost constant chord swept wing. The widened fuselage was necessary to lodge the Nene 2 engine that was of centrifugal kind. With the first definitions of the model, test glider versions were built, to be towed by bombers. Their objective was to test low speed behaviour of the novedous swept aerodynamic surfaces. The Ta-183 I type empennages were modified substantially; as tests progressed, few elements of the Ta-183 I/II remained: perhaps the IA-33 wing was roughly similar to Ta-183 I's one. Anyway, it can be seen that the same kind of aerodynamics was applied in all these projects, as can be seen in the thin swept surfaces used. The result was a an airplane capable of speeds over 1000 Km/h, and of good behaviour at low speeds.
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