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The Focke-Achgelis Fa 336 was a design for a powered version of the Fa 330 gyro kite. The Fa 330 had been produced as a simple reconnaissance aircraft for use from U-boats. It was built around a horizontal steel tube that carried the tail, the pylon for a freely moving rotor, the pilot's seat and his controls. It flew in the airflow produced by a moving submarine. The Fa 330 was a technical success, but unpopular with the U-boat crews. If a submarine was attacked the immediate response was to dive, but if a Fa 330 was in the air then the commander had to either delay his dive or abandon the pilot.
The Fa 336 would have partly solving this problem. It would have been similar to the Fa 330, but with a 60hp engine and landing wheels and a number of other potential design changes. The engine would have given it a chance of staying in the air after its U-boat had submerged, and possibly eluding the Allied attack. The Fa 336 was never built in Germany, and so the design was never finalised. A modified example was built in France after the war by the SNCA du Sud-Est
Aircraft of the Luftwaffe 1935-1945, Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage.
Combines a good background history of the Luftwaffe with a comprehensive examination of its aircraft, from the biplanes of the mid 1930s to the main wartime aircraft and on to the seemingly unending range of experimental designs that wasted so much effort towards the end of the war. A useful general guide that provides an impressively wide range of information on almost every element of the Luftwaffe
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