Arado Ar 68

Ar 68
Role	Biplane Fighter
Manufacturer	Arado
Designer	Walter Blume
First flight	1934
Introduction	1936
Retired	1940
Primary user	Luftwaffe
Number built	511

The Arado Ar 68 was a single-seat biplane fighter developed in the mid-1930s. It was among the first fighters produced when Germany abandoned the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles and began rearming.

Designed to replace the Heinkel He 51, the Ar 68 proved to have admirable handling characteristics on its first flight in early 1934, despite Arado's inability to secure a sufficiently powerful engine for the prototype. Eventually, a Junkers Jumo 210 was installed and the Ar 68 went into production, though not before worries about the unforgiving nature of such a high-performance aircraft almost resulted in the cancellation of the project.

The Ar 68 entered service with the Luftwaffe in 1936 and one of the first units was stationed in East Prussia. Soon, the fighter was sent to fight in the Spanish Civil War, where it was outclassed by the Soviet Polikarpov I-16. Arado responded by upgrading the engine of the Ar 68E, which soon became the Luftwaffe's most widely used fighter in 1937-8 before being replaced by the Messerschmitt Bf 109. The last Ar 68s served as night fighters and fighter-trainers up to the winter of 1939-40.

Data from:

Data from Warplanes of the Third Reich.

General characteristics

Performance

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