Bomb/Cargo Rack on Late Junkers J.I

[GSPOINTER]

Looking at photos of various J.I's in The WNW instructions ( p.21,22) and Datafile 39 ( P.26,31,33,34 ) some late aircraft were equipped with a small rack attached to the landing gear.

Where the rack is visible, an external vertical conduit runs down the right side of the fuselage to the top of the lower wing just forward of the fuselage attachment point of the forward wing struts.

In some pictures of surviving 586/18, this appears to be crushed, so I assume that this was hollow and carried the cable release for the rack ( going thru the wing ), and perhaps extended aft along the top of the fuselage to the pilot's compartmant. All aircraft with this conduit visible also have the rack.

Also, 845/17 on page 14 of the DF seems to show a different installation, with the conduit on the left side of the aircraft.

I wonder if anyone has seen any better photos of this rack or perhaps the conduit on top of the fuselage forward of the pilots cockpit ?

[GrahamB]

Hi Pete,

some good observations there. I can't add anything with regard to further images but thought that it does look like a rack for carrying (not dropping) something. I wondered if one of the infantry-support roles for the Ju J1 might have been laying smoke screens - the rack was for carrying a smoke-canister/generator? Just a thought.

Cheers,

GrahamB

[GSPOINTER]

Hi Graham;

The WNW J.I page of archive photos has a couple which when enlarged give enought detail to SWAG the rack for the build. It sems to be a transverse affair with 2 sets of stays - perhaps a rack mounted sideways. The WNW guys also mention it in one of the captions.

A smoke generator is as likely a guess as anything. I always wondered how a bomb would safely clear the lower parts of the l/g if dropped from that rack.

On one of the WNW pics, a second conduit seems to go down from the observer's position - perhaps to another rack or a camera door ??