Hispano Aviación HA-1112
| HA-1112 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Hispano HA.1112 K-1L Buchon | |
| Role | Fighter |
| Manufacturer |
Messerschmitt Hispano Aviación |
| First flight | 29 March 1954 |
| Retired | 27 December 1965 |
| Status | Retired |
| Primary user | Spanish Air Force |
| Number built | 239 |
| Developed from | Messerschmitt Bf 109 |
The Hispano Aviación HA-1109 and HA-1112 are license-built versions of the Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2 developed in Spain during and after World War II.
The Spanish government in 1942 arranged a manufacturing licence with Messerschmitt AG to build the Bf 109G-2, with DB605A engines, propellers, instruments, and weapons to be supplied from Germany. This proved impossible, as Germany was incapable of meeting her own needs, let alone Spain's; in the event, only twenty-five airframes (minus their tails) and not even half the necessary drawings were delivered.
As a result, Hispano substituted the 1,300 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Z-89 engine, which flew at Barcelona in 1944, while the first HA-1109-J1L made its maiden flight 2 March 1945 at Seville, using a VDM prop and lash-up engine mounting. The other twenty-four airframes were flown during 1947-9 with Escher-Wyss props, but never became operational.
A developed version, with an improved installation for the Hispano-Suiza 12Z-17 engine, appeared in May 1951 as the HA-1112-K1L. Fitted with a three bladed de Havilland Hydromatic propeller, it was nicknamed Tripala ("three blades"). Its armament consisted of one or two 12.7mm Breda machineguns and Pilatus eight-packs of 80mm rockets.
It first flew in 1951, and although 200 units were planned, only 65 were ever built. The Hispano engine was an upright V12 in contrast to the inverted V12 Daimler-Benz DB 601 & 605 engines used in the Bf 109. Being of compact design, it fitted the airframe of the Bf 109 well, representing it in the German 1957 film Der Stern von Afrika (The Star of Africa) about Luftwaffe ace Hans-Joachim Marseille. In the original design, an asymmetric vertical fin with an airfoiled profile had been introduced starting with the Bf 109F to produce a slight left movement of the tail, which counteracted the left-side torque reaction from the Daimler-Benz engine's counterclockwise rotation. Since this was left unchanged in the Buchón, and the Hispano V12 powered a clockwise-turning propeller instead, the combination of the airfoiled fin and the clockwise-turning propeller created a hard-to-counteract right swing on takeoff, since the fin and the propeller essentially worked in the same direction.
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Wikipedia