Focke-Wulf Fw 56 Stösser

The Focke-Wulf Fw 56 Stösser, the Goshawk, was a single-engine parasol-wing monoplane advanced trainer and the first Focke-Wulf aircraft designed from the start by Kurt Tank, who also named it. The fuselage was steel tube, clad in metal at the front and canvas elsewhere, the wing was wooden and mostly plywood covered, and the power came from an air-cooled Argus As 10C V-8 inline engine. It was meant for trainee pilots moving up from the Bucher primary trainer, and a pair of cowl-mounted machine guns and a rack for small bombs let it serve as an emergency fighter. The first prototype flew in November 1933, the type beat the Arado Ar 76 and Heinkel He 74 in a 1935 flyoff, and roughly 1,000 were built for Germany and several other air forces.