The Pulqúi (Arrow) II was designed for the Instituto Aerotécnico (I.Aé.) at
Córdoba in Argentina by a German team led by the former Focke-Wulf
chief designer Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Kurt Tank. The I.Aé.33 was
envisaged as the successor to the Meteor in service with the Fuerza
Aérea Argentina and embodied much of the experience gained by
the German aircraft industry during WW II.
Five prototypes were ordered, the first being the static test vehicle
so the types first flight was made by prototype number two on June 27,
1950. Various difficulties were encountered and it crashed near
Córdoba; subsequently a second prototype was also lost and this
protracted the program to such an extend that the last prototype did
not fly until September 18, 1959.
A Rolls-Royce Nene 2 turbojet installed behind the cockpit in a
relative short fuselage powered the Pulqúi. The shoulder-mounted
wing was swept back 40°, the fin and rudder were swept 50°,
and the also 40° swept tail plane mounted at the extreme tip of
the vertical surfaces to avoid the turbulent wake of the high-mounted
wing. Armament consisted of four 0.79 in (20 mm) cannons.
The production version was to have a high-powered afterburning
axial-flow turbo-jet with which level speeds of just below Mach 1
were expected. However, by the time the last prototype flew the
design team led by Kurt Tank had left Argentina and high cost were
envisaged for the initiation of the series production, so the
development program was discontinued in 1960.