Aarne Lakomaa

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Aarne Lakomaa (1914–2001) was a Finnish aircraft designer. Born in Finland, Lakomaa graduated from Helsinki Polytechnics. He fought as an Army Lieutenant in the Winter War (1939–40) and the Continuation War (1941–44) against the Soviet Union. There he became famous for fitting captured Russian engines to the obsolete French fighter Morane-Saulnier M.S.406, thereby creating a first rate fighter, the Mörkö-Morane ("mörkö" being Finnish roughly for "bogeyman" or "hobgoblin"). Aarne Lakomaa first replaced the original Hispano-Suiza 12Y 31 liquid-cooled V-12 rated at 860 hp with a 1,100 hp Soviet engine— the Klimov M-105P—which was a war booty.^[1] This engine was installed under the cover of a more aerodynamic cowling and fitted with a different pitch propeller. The French M.S.406's airframe was strengthened, and an oil cooler from a Messerschmitt-109 replaced the old one. In this way over-heating problems was finally solved. As a result of these modifications, the improved version of Morane had a 36-mph speed advantage over all previous versions.^[1]

Lakomaa was recruited to Saab in 1944 as an aircraft designer. He was involved in the development of the fighters Saab 35 Draken and Saab 37 Viggen, and later headed R&D at Saab where he designed a number of prototypes, including a rocket propelled interceptor, nuclear weapon carriers, replacements for the Draken and Viggen, which was initially developed to substitute the Saab 32,^[2] and a supersonic business jet. Aarne Lakomaa was a part of team that first began studies on this theme in 1952–57. They were aimed at producing an aircraft with excellent short runway performance.

Aircraft designs[]

Civilian projects[]

• Saab 90 Scandia, airliner 1946
• (SSE), a sort of a large Viggen with twin J 93s for 4–6 passengers, 1968
• Turboprop airliner
• : Three-engined jet commuter
• Saab 107 (STOL/RTOL) field transport aircraft
• , 1977:
• Twin engined business jet
• As 109 but three engines and up to nine passengers
• Single engine agricultural turboprop
• Twin jet corporate aircraft, 15 passengers, 1969
• Three-engined corporate jet, 25 passengers, 1969
• , twin ALF 502 commuter jet (over the wings for grass field capability), 1975
• Saab 340

Military projects[]

• missile-armed fighter with two de Havilland rocket engines
• was a Draken replacement fighter with Gyron jets with partial afterburners on the wingtips and an (automatically starting in case of engine failure) rocket in the tail (the rocket motor is still in use on sounding rockets)
• was a larger attack variant of 1325, with full afterburners
• single engine (Olympus) of 1350
• was an unstable double delta (did not proceed far, in fact, not even a wind tunnel model was produced)
• was the A 36 nuclear strike bomber
• like 1376 but with a dorsal air intake
• was a M 2.8 Draken replacement in 1956
• , which was similar to a Harrier
• in 1961 looked very much like Viggen

References[]