JU-87 Stuka HQ

About

The Junkers Ju 87 Stuka (short for Sturzkampfflugzeug, "diving combat aircraft") is one of the most-recognized aircraft of the Second World War. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann and Karl Plauth at the Junkers works in Dessau, the Ju 87 prototype made its first flight on September 17, 1935. The type entered Luftwaffe service in 1937 and saw combat trials with the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War before becoming one of the defining aircraft of the early years of the Second World War.

The Stuka's specialty was the precision dive bombing attack — a near-vertical dive from altitude, releasing the bomb at low altitude, and recovering with the help of an automatic pull-out system. The aircraft's most famous feature was the Jericho-Trompete ("Jericho Trumpet") — propeller-driven sirens fitted to the landing gear legs that emitted a terrifying scream during the dive, intended as much to demoralize troops on the ground as to terrify them. The Ju 87 was devastatingly effective during the Polish, French, and early Russian campaigns, but suffered increasingly heavy losses against properly equipped fighter opposition; the Battle of Britain demonstrated that the Stuka was vulnerable to Spitfires and Hurricanes once it had committed to its dive.

Total Ju 87 production reached approximately 6,500 airframes between 1936 and 1944. The unmistakable Stuka silhouette — inverted gull wing, fixed spatted landing gear, the distinctive "kink" in the wing leading edge — is one of the most-modeled German WWII subjects in modern RC scale flying. The "HQ" suffix in this model name refers to a higher-quality giant-scale RC implementation.

In the simulator

A demanding warbird scale subject with the substantial nose-down character of a real dive bomber. Use it for warbird-style scale flying including the steep-dive maneuvers the Stuka was built for. A unique entry alongside the more conventional Allied warbirds in earlier packs.