Prior to 1942, the RLM gave no thought to defensive German aircraft and then the Brit bombers and Mosquito appeared which changed everything. Goering wanted a German rival to "The Wooden Wonder" that was the De Havilland Mosquito and Kurt Tank of Focke-Wulf came up with a design in '42 that first flew in '43. This was a 2-seat nightfighter with heavy armament and Lichtenstein SN-2 radar. The aircraft had to wait on the Jumo 213 engines which caused an initial delay until the Jumo 213A was ready. 7 preproduction aircraft were built plus 8 A-series. The aircraft had a top speed of 416 mph, ceiling of 36,000 ft, and range of 1150 miles with drop tanks. Latter models would be equipped with ejection seats. But although the flight performance was excellent for the time, a British bombing run hit the Goldman Tego-Film adhesive glue for the wood bonding and the substitute Dynamit AG adhesive was in development and not as strong. This caused the second production machine to come apart in the air in the summer of '44 and Tank realized that until it was perfected that Ta 154 production could not meet the contract for 250 of them. So he opted out on a potential excellent warplane that went nowhere. Its rival the He-219 nightfighter went on to become the best of WW2 which easily could catch and shoot down Brit heavies as well as the previously invunerable Mosquito! Its speed was 419 mph and it was armed with Lichtenstein SN-2 radar plus 6x 20mm cannons in forward, ventral, and oblique mounts! The RLM's dislike of Heinkel meant that it was underproduced, so planes like the Me Bf 110 heavy fighter were converted to nightfighter (it was OK) as was the Ju-388 bomber! While plans went on for jet nightfighters like the Me-262 HG.III and Go-229B, eight of the Ta 154 fuselages were packed with explosives to be detonated in the midst of bomber streams by remote-control. They were Pulk-Zerstorers but were never used. The Allies found the Ta 154s lying around unused. Only a few had the radar and armament mounted. A damn shame. Focke-Wulf during the war had lost out on the 187 Falke, the 300 bomber, the 190TL jet, the Ta 154, the Triebflugel coleopter, and was just producing components of the jet Ta 183 when the war ended. No Ta 283 Nova either!!!

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