The Arado Ar 233 was a 1940s

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

design for a civil twin-engined amphibian flying boat, developed by

Dewoitine Constructions Aéronautiques Émile Dewoitine was a French aircraft manufacturer established in Toulouse by Émile Dewoitine in October 1920. The company's initial products were a range of metal parasol-wing fighters, which were largely ignored by ...

in France under the control of

Arado Flugzeugwerke Arado Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturer, originally established as the Warnemünde factory of the Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen firm, which produced land-based military aircraft and seaplanes during the First and Second World Wars. ...

.Bridgeman 1988, p. 156

Design and development

The Ar 233 was a twin-engined flying-boat with room for ten passengers. It would have been powered by either two BMW 323 or

BMW 801 The BMW 801 was a powerful Nazi Germany, German Air-cooled engine, air-cooled 14-cylinder-radial engine, radial aircraft engine built by BMW and used in a number of German Luftwaffe aircraft of World War II. Production versions of the Radial e ...

engines. A retractable tricycle landing gear would have allowed amphibious operation. A mockup was completed by

in German-occupied France, but the project was abandoned due to the

Liberation of France The liberation of France () in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance. Nazi Germany in ...

in 1944.

General history of the aircraft

The Arado Ar 233 was intended for civilian use only but, later on in the development process, the Germans wanted to weaponize it and make it suitable for combat. Some aircraft firms that worked for the axis power, were thinking about post war German civil aircraft early in the 1940s, in accordance with a request made by the

Reichsluftfahrtministerium The Ministry of Aviation (, abbreviated RLM) was a government department during the period of Nazi Germany (1933–45). It is also the original name of the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus building on the Wilhelmstrasse in central Berlin, Germany, which ...

(RLM/German aviation ministry). Some examples of aircraft designed for Germany for future civilian use are the Fw 206 and the BV 144. The Arado firm responded with their own two engine float plane design because of the Fw 206 and BV 144. The Ar 233 project began around August and bore the company designation E 430 and initially the RLM designation Ar 430. Two variants were envisaged, one being a Bramo 323 R2 powered seaplane model capable of transporting ten passengers, and the other powered by the Argus Ar 204, which was scrapped for in favor of the much more superior Bramo 323 R2.

Specifications (proposed)

References

Citations

Bibliography