Musuem Stories - Dornier DO 335 Pfeil

I first encountered the Dornier DO 335 Pfeil (Arrow), like a lot of weird WWII German aircraft, in Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. Back in the days when games came on 3.5" disks, and flight-sim manuals were hundreds of pages thick, serving as history primers and for battles and aircraft. I miss manuals like that. Two pages of legal disclaimers and a website link just isn't the same.

IL-2's DO 335 A-0 in a hard climb (and about to depart into a flat spin).

But I digress. As another of Hitler's "wonder weapons", the DO 335 was only produced in extremely tiny numbers before World War II ended. Powered by a pair of 1,726hp Daimler-Benz DB 603A engines, the A-0 and A-1 Pfeils could reach a top speed of 475mph, enough to run away from any of the common Allied aircraft in the European theater. The aircraft carried a single 30mm cannon firing through the front propeller hub, and two 20mm cannons in the cowling, firing through the propeller arc.

DO 335 cockpit in Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe

DO 335 upper and lower cockpit views in IL-2

The push-pull engine arrangement, while uncommon, has a number of advanages. Much better engine-out performance, P-Factor cancellation, and reduced drag being the major factors. It does suffer from a few common disadvantages as well, particularly in difficulty cooling the rear engine (an issue frequently shared by pusher aircraft), and potential to be hard on pilots who need to depart the aircraft in-flight. The DO 335 was equipped with one of the first ejection seats, coupled with explosive bolts to sever the dorsal fin and rear propeller blades, to solve the latter issue.

DO 335 external view in SWOTL

As with a lot of late-war German and Japanese aircraft, survivors are rare. In this case, there's only one left, one of two A-0s that were shipped to America after the war for testing. I encountered it at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Washington D.C., where it hangs out with all sorts of other rare aircraft. It's a huge aircraft, sitting high on its stork-like tricycle gear (which caused a number of development issues).

The genuine article at the Udvar-Hazy center, flanked by the only surviving Arado AR 234, and the museum's FW 190 F-8. (My photo).

Gear down in IL-2

In gaming, the best current(ish) representation of the DO 335 comes from IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946. The A-0 makes an appearance, plus an up-gunned version with a pair of additional wing mounted 30mm cannons that the game refers to as the V-13, but other documents reference as the B-2 model.

IL-2's V-13 fantasy variant.