Ww2 Bomber Nose Art Beat Me Daddy 8 to the Bar

past DON HOLLWAY
Appearing in the Nov 2017 issue of AVIATION HISTORY magazine

Col. Avelin P. Tacon Jr., 359th Fighter Group

In late July 1944, Mustang pilots claiming air superiority over Frg got a nasty shock. Col. Avelin P. Tacon Jr. of the 359th Fighter Group reported, "My viii ship section was furnishing close support to a Combat Wing of B-17s that had just bombed Merseburg. The bombers were heading due south at 24,000 anxiety and we were flight parallel to them about 1,000 yards to the east at 25,000 feet. Someone called in contrails loftier at six o'clock."

Already more than a mile in a higher place Tacon'due south Mustangs, two stubby, tailless, swept-wing single-seaters dived to the attack. "When they were however almost 3,000 yards from the bombers they saw us and fabricated a slight turn to the left into united states of america, and away from the bombers," Avelin recalled. "Their bank was nigh 80 degrees in this turn, but they only changed course about 20 degrees....Their rate of roll appeared to be excellent, but radius of turn very large. I gauge, conservatively, they were doing between 500 and 600mph."

The intruders slashed past the American formation. One dived away and the other climbed into the sun, as some other 359th pilot put it, "like a bat out of hell." That quickly, they were gone. "Although I had seen them first their dive and watched them throughout their attack," Tacon admitted, "I had no time to go my sights anywhere near them."

Messerschmitt Me 163B 1a Komet past Shigeo Koike

1944 was the year of the Wunderwaffen, German wonder weapons. King Tiger tanks. Jet fighters. Helicopters. Guided missiles. Cruise missiles. Prototype ICBMs. Railway guns. Long range superguns. Spurred by the specter of imminent defeat, projects that had been years in evolution were suddenly given highest priority, accelerated into product, and put into service. Having evolved since the 1920s, the rocket fighter would show 1 of the more successful ventures. Whether it proved gainsay-worthy would be another matter....

Read the incredible story of the rocket fighter in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

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Offset rocket-powered flight: 11th June 1928

Fritz Stamer in the Lippisch Ente (Duck). It was powered eight.8 pound sticks of black pulverisation, ignited sequentially from the cockpit, each delivering 30 seconds of thrust. The first attempt failed when i of the rockets burned out. On his 2nd attempt, shown here (launched with a bungee cord), Stamer flew virtually .nine mile around the Wasserkuppe, the highest peak in the Rhön Mountains. The flight lasted only well-nigh 80 seconds. On a third attempt, 1 rocket exploded and the Duck caught fire 65 feet in the air. Stamer put it down and jumped out unharmed, merely the Ente burned to the ground.

Alexander Lippisch, 1929

Information technology was the Allies themselves who forced the Germans into thinking outside the box. The Versailles Treaty ending WWI, which forbade Germany powered single-seat shipping (i.e., fighter planes), forced its scientists, engineers and pilots into gliders and rocketry. The Wasserkuppe, the highest tiptop in the Rhön Mountains, served equally proving ground for self-taught aerodynamicist Alexander Lippisch'south innovative flying-wing gliders. Carmaker Fritz von Opel, who liked rocket-powered cars for publicity stunts, bought Lippisch'south "Ente" (Duck) sailplane and equipped information technology with black pulverisation rockets.

Fritz Stamer with Alexander Lippisch

On June 11, 1928, just 25 years later on the Wright brothers proved powered manned flight was even possible—and 11 years before jet propulsion became a reality—flight instructor Fritz Stamer flew the rocket airplane nearly a mile around the Wasserkuppe. On his next endeavour, however, 1 of the fuel sticks exploded. "The four kilograms of black pulverisation flew out and immediately caught the plane on burn," Stamer remembered. He put downwards and got out alive, merely the Duck was a total loss.

Hellmuth Walter

When the German language armed forces reasserted itself, information technology looked into liquid-fuel rockets that could be shut off and re-lit. Wernher von Braun favored called-for methyl alcohol with liquid oxygen, then in short supply. Engineer Hellmuth Walter preferred less volatile, more plentiful hydrogen peroxide—not the dilute H₂O₂ available at the corner drugstore, which fizzes when sterilizing a scratch, but lxxx%-pure "T-Stoff." Reacting with "Z-Stoff," a catalyst of calcium or potassium permanganates mixed in water, it decomposed near-explosively into high-force per unit area steam at 800° C. It also spontaneously ignited whatsoever organic fabric it touched, and dissolved human flesh. "If you stick your finger in it," Lippisch warned, "then you go only the bone out."

Von Braun's idea for a vertical-takeoff fighter was rejected. Ernst Heinkel's tiny He-176 prototype used Walter'due south rocket, but could provide merely 40 seconds of thrust; Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring dismissed it equally a "squeamish little toy." Prior to war, no pressing need was foreseen for a rocket fighter. Development slowed. Come the summertime of 1941 information technology was a different story. "Papa" Lippisch, past then working at Messerschmitt, installed a Walter rocket in his "Project 10" : a tailless delta airplane, the Me-163A.

DFS 194 V1, the prototype for the Me-163. Flown at Peenemünde-Westward, winter 1939-twoscore.

Me-163A V3. On Oct three, 1941, examination pilot Heinrich "Heini" Dittmar flew this prototype to a new speed record of over 1000km/h

Glider skillful, examination pilot Heinrich "Heini" Dittmar

Fifty-fifty though it burned most of its fuel just taking off, the 163A—"Anton"—climbed at iv,000 meters per minute and hands bankrupt all existing speed records. On October second, 1941, Lippisch's favorite glider pilot, Heinrich "Heini" Dittmar, had an Me-110 tow him upwards over xiii,000 feet with a full fuel load, cast off, and hit 1,003.67kph (629mph, nigh Mach .84) in level flight. "And then, things started to happen," Dittmar recalled. "...The airplane was beingness pushed downwardly by an incredible force. It took everything I had merely to keep my manus on the stick. Some junk floated up from the flooring of the cockpit, passed my face and stuck to the canopy....The engine quit!"

Compression shockwaves had caused airflow over the wing to actually exceed the speed of sound, producing negative elevator, which killed fuel flow. Despite -11g, Dittmar managed to pull out and re-light the burner. His speed record, initially elevation secret, would stand almost six years.

Lt. Rudolf Opitz

With a wingspan slightly less than the Me-109 (30.5 feet), the 163 had 18% more than fly surface area; even unpowered, information technology boasted a glide angle of 1:20. (Modern hang gliders only achieve 1:15, though broad-winged sailplanes can practise up to i:60.) The 163's aerodynamics were nearly too good. At anything over 400kph airflow held the clamshell awning shut, making bailouts problematic. Veteran Wasserkuppe airplane pilot Lt. Rudolf "Pitz" Opitz, who had flown DFS-230 gliders in the invasion of Kingdom of belgium and now backed Dittmar as second test pilot, remembered, "The canopy would float one inch over the frame. It wouldn't blow off....Nosotros took a broomstick forth to endeavour to push up the olfactory organ section of the canopy to get it out in the slipstream and make it suspension off."

Major Wolfgang Späte

In the jump of 1942 Eprobungskommando (Operational Trials Control) 16 was formed to train rocket-fighter pilots. Prewar gliding champion Captain Wolfgang Späte, now a summit ace with Jagdgeschwader 54 on the Russian front with 80 victories and Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross, was given control. "Air defense force of the homeland is going to be important," General of Fighters Adolf Galland told him. "...I desire to bring the Me-163 to combat-ready status as apace as possible."

Lt. Josef "Joschi" Pöhs

The unit fix shop at Peenemünde, the top-secret test site on Deutschland'due south Baltic coast. Equally aide Späte brought in his best friend, blue-eyed Viennese Lt. Josef "Joschi" Pöhs, a 43-victory ace with JG54 only still on crutches later on bailing out of an Me-109. "I was able to drag him out of his sickbed in a flash with only a few hints nigh testing a rocket fighter," Späte recalled. "...He was sure he could movement his feet around enough to move a rudder. He still couldn't depress the brake pedals, but that wasn't necessary. The Me-163 didn't take any."

On May 11 Späte climbed into the aforementioned Me-163A that Dittmar had used for his speed record 7 months earlier, merely this time for a "sharp commencement," a rocket-powered takeoff. "An Me-109 accelerated ameliorate under full ability, merely with a propeller, the dispatch decreased as the speed increased," he remembered. "Here the dispatch was constant....When I pulled the handle and the wheels fell away, information technology felt like I had but dug in my spurs....At present all I had to do was follow Dittmar's instructions and keep the airspeed at 400km/h. To practice it, I had to continually pull back on the stick. My attitude kept increasing until I was climbing at 45 degrees. Even and then, the airplane wanted to advance."

Its treatment amazed him fifty-fifty more than. "Despite its unique tailless planform, the Me 163 was stable in every axis. This meant that at loftier speeds yous could effortlessly make whatsoever course correction, in any direction, something that is of major significance for a fighter airplane and is quite often lacking in other faster airplanes."

"I found this creation of Lippisch to be an aircraft with flight characteristics so beautifully balanced that I accept seldom flown one similar information technology, either before or afterwards this flight," Späte recalled. "...In reality, we accept a flying tailless Interceptor, an aircraft capable of 1,000km/h, and one which will hopefully swing the tide of the air war in our favor."

But if the 163 was a sweetheart in the air, information technology was a devil everywhere else. Every bit with his sailplanes, Lippisch believed wheels were only necessary on the ground. 163 pilots dropped their main gear soon after takeoff and landed on an extendable belly skid. The dolly, neither stupor-absorbing nor steerable, required operations off broad grass fields, since without steering a concrete strip would just have been useful if the wind was bravado along information technology. A combination tow motor/forklift, the Scheuschlepper (Shy Tug), retrieved it from the field, at first lifting information technology on airbags inflated under the wings.

If the rocket cutting out at low altitude, pilots were warned non to try to depository financial institution or turn with a total fuel load, only to put down straight away. "If at all possible," suggested one, "heading straight into the cemetery to save expenses."

Rudi Opitz tests the 163B with a helmet-mounted camera (Silent)
Enlarge

With all that wing expanse the 163 tended to float on landing. Loftier landing speeds (100mph in the Anton and 137mph in the "Berta" ) made overshoots common. On unprepared footing the belly skid ofttimes dug in like a plow; nor did it much soften a hard landing, as Dittmar learned when he stalled a Berta at 12 anxiety and slammed it down on concrete. Its skid complanate. The shock went directly to his spine. With his fifth thoracic vertebra broken, Dittmar was grounded for two years. He was lucky. Me-163 pilots apace became experts at dead-stick landings, or they died.

Heini Dittmar and Hanna Reitsch with Me-163 (Silent)
Overstate

Despite the difficulties, or because of them, the claiming of rocket flying was undeniable. Famous aviatrix Hanna Reitsch, the High german Amelia Earhart, used her friendship with Adolf Hitler to wrangle rocket flights in the Anton and glide flights in the Berta. On October thirty, 1942, on her fifth flying in a Berta, its undercarriage dolly refused to separate. Reitsch missed the rail, came down across the grain of a fresh-plowed field and dug in, banging her face on her gunsight, breaking her cheeks, jaw and skull and almost violent off her nose. Though she spent six months in the hospital, she still insisted on being the commencement to wing a sharp start in the B. Späte (who thought her a primadonna) forbade her to farther risk herself. She never flew information technology again.

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By 1943 Peenemünde was the wunderwaffe capitol of the globe. Along with the Me-163, radio-guided and wire-guided glide bombs and the 5-1 prowl missile were being tested. Späte's pilots watched the first examination shots of the 5-2 rocket, one of which heeled over on liftoff and came down on their field, bravado up a pair of five-engine twin-fuselage Heinkel He-111Z tow planes. "Our Me-163 was counted as i of the Five-weapons," Späte remembered. "...V-weapons! Those familiar with the programs knew with hugger-mugger horror that, of all the new weapons, not one was set up for deployment with our gainsay forces."

With its low fuel capacity and relatively low-power motor, the 163A could just achieve 16,000 feet, not plenty to reach high-flight Centrolineal bombers. Lippisch's Me-163B, the "Berta," was bigger, easier to produce, and could carry more fuel, not to mention wing guns. Whereas the 163A's "common cold" rocket burned at 800°, Walter was developing new "hot" motor, burning T-Stoff and C-Stoff (30% hydrazine hydrate solution in methanol) at 2,000°. It existence admittedly disquisitional that T-Stoff and C-Stoff never came together except in a combustion chamber, there were carve up handling crews for each. T-Stoff, which corroded iron and steel, had to exist kept in aluminum tanks, but C-Stoff ate through aluminum, and had to be kept in drinking glass or enamel. All T-Stoff containers were white; all C-Stoff containers yellow. Fuel trucks, conspicuously marked T or C, were forbidden to come up within 800 meters of each other. Pilots wore flight suits of constructed fiber polyvinylchloride impervious to T-Stoff, at least until information technology leaked in through the seams.Shortages of C-Stoff and reliability problems—thrust cutting-outs, explosive combustion-sleeping accommodation failures—would delay deliveries of the "Hell Car" past a year.

The countless delays with the Walter motor put the rocket-fighter program on indefinite concur. "The Me-163," Späte learned, "unfortunately doesn't take the same priority as U-boats, tanks or AAA [anti-aircraft artillery]. And because of it, we continue to experience all these delays."

The RLM went so far equally to inquire BMW to come up up with an culling design burning nitric acid and methanol, which came to nothing. Meanwhile jet-engine technology had caught up and was moving literally full-speed ahead. Späte even test-flew a prototype Me-262. He found it neither as fast nor as maneuverable every bit his rocket fighter but, with its greater endurance, far more than practical. "The Me-163 was a pocket-size, polished dagger," he concluded. "The Me-262, on the other mitt, was a large sharp sword....It was the means to swing the course of the war back to our side." Disdaining the 163 with a "not invented here" attitude that eventually drove Lippisch from the company—or merely seeing the writing on the wall—Messerschmitt focused on their in-firm Me-262 jet. Späte complained, "They believed the Me-163 would probably be the side by side project to 'go the axe.'"

General of Fighter Pilots Adolf Galland (moustache) attends the preview of the Me-163A at Lechfeld, Bavaria. Heini Dittmar in white coveralls, Späte in profile to right, Opitz smiling at photographic camera

On Thursday, June 24, virtually a year later than planned, and in front of Luftwaffe dignitaries including Galland and Field Marshal Erhard Milch, Luftwaffe Air Inspector Full general, Opitz made the first abrupt start in a 163B with the new Walter rocket. Halfway down the runway, even so well below takeoff speed, he hit a crash-land that lofted the two-ton airplane a dozen feet in the air. On coming dorsum down it tore off its right cycle. With the left banging loose on the fuselage (and a burn truck already setting off subsequently him), Opitz stomped full right rudder and rode the skid for 300 feet before he lifted off, dropped the remains of his undercarriage, and flew a perfect demonstration flying. When he touched down, eyes streaming with T-Stoff fumes leaked from a ruptured line, Milch awarded him 5,000 marks for dangerous duty. The Me-163B, at present chosen the Komet, was ordered into production. A week subsequently Lippisch left Messerschmitt.

The Allies were becoming enlightened of German rocket research. On July 26 an RAF Mosquito snapped photos of parked, bat-winged shipping which Allied analysts designated "Peenemünde 20." Over the night of August 17/18 almost 600 RAF bombers pummeled the base: only a taste of the destruction to exist wrought on German cities as the Allied bombing entrada intensified. EK sixteen relocated to Bad Zwischenahn, near Bremen. Townspeople, to whom rocket fighters overhead became nada unusual (they called the Me-163 the "Moth" ; pilots nicknamed it the "Thunderbird" or "Powered Egg") asked, "When are yous going to use your forcefulness and sweep the skies make clean again?"

Xi Me-163Bs were destroyed when the Messerschmitt constitute was bombed. Production, farmed out to Klemm and Junkers, was hampered by lack of engines and components. There were disquisitional shortages of C-Stoff, trucks to send C-Stoff, and tanks to store C-Stoff.

Joschi Pöhs resorted to mock-dogfighting educatee pilots in Fw-190s when they overflew the base. "He and then adeptly and skillfully used the turning adequacy and airspeed of his minor rocket bird, as well as the acceleration power of the engine," approved Späte, "...the pupil pilots fled for home in their FW-190s."

"The men are dying to practise something positive for our air defence," Pöhs excused. "Information technology'southward an impossible situation for them to sit here week afterwards week waiting, while bombers roar over and destroy our cities."

Meanwhile Späte devised operational plans for deploying Komets when they finally arrived. "We should systematically disperse squadron-sized units in a network of suitable airfields," he recommended to Galland, "...between 60 to 150 miles autonomously from each other. They should exist built in a chain which enemy aircraft will have to wing over."

The first 47 163B-0 models carried 1 20mm cannon in each wing root. By 1944 this was already light ammunition, peculiarly against big, armored bombers. In the later 163B-1 models the Mk 151 was replaced with the 30mm Mk 108. Lt. Gustav Korff, a communications specialist from the Russian Front, signed on as the unit's ground controller, pioneering new radar guidance equipment and techniques necessary to steer rocket pilots, inside minutes, onto targets initially too high for them to see.

Finally, belatedly that year, Späte and Pöhs visited Augsberg to test-fly the first product Bertas. Späte suited upwards in a polyvinylchloride hood, coveralls and overshoes. "I felt similar a mummy," he recalled. "...But wearing the adapt gave me the confidence that I had a sure amount of protection against that cursed T-Agent....The designers had installed fuel tanks (in the wrong place) to the left and right of the pilot'south seat. A simple sheet of pure aluminum separated my legs from 2 60-liter tanks gurgling with T-Amanuensis. A pocket-sized blow on takeoff and you lot're sitting in a flesh-dissolving solution...."

Nevertheless, he before long forgot any doubts he'd had almost the rocket fighter. "Now I was about to discover out what the Walter engine and my little Me-163 actually had in them. After the wheels dropped and the skid retracted, the aircraft actually started to step out." The Anton climbed 45° at 400km/h; the Berta, even steeper at 600km/h. In three½ minutes it could reach 40,000 anxiety. "This was a special kind of airplane," Späte knew, "...an extremely good feeling aircraft, an elegant, lightning fast, hands controllable dart....I had experienced something today that even the Me-163A didn't have to offer. Yous actually could intercept any other aircraft with this bird." His only complaint was an excruciating need to fart: "I swore to myself that I would never again eat pea soup and heavy cornbread before a flight in a rocket fighter."

Me-163 V8 CD+IM
Fatally crashed by Oblt. Joschi Pöhs on Dec. xxx, 1943. CD+IM were also the letters of Me-163B V3, in which Heinrich "Heini" Dittmar set his speed tape

Späte and Pöhs returned to Peenemünde to await deliveries. On December. 30 Späte was doing paperwork in his office when he heard another training flight of FW-190s overhead, so the roar of a 163A taking off. "Pöhs presumably was going to take this opportunity to chase them away," figured Späte, who remembered suddenly jumping out of his chair. "The sound of the engine had quit abruptly....The engine must take flamed out shortly after takeoff....Then an explosion shook the billet walls and windows every bit though a bomb had gone off."

Oberleutnant Josef Pöhs
43 aerial victories

Späte jumped in a car and raced to the crash site, 1½ miles away on the far end of the field. Information technology was Pöhs. "He had not tried to bond out as the airplane had never got high enough for him to use his parachute. He had succeeded in turning the aircraft dorsum towards the base of operations—among the states pilots, that was known as the 'death plow' since then many have crashed attempting it. Just, every bit he soared in over the landing expanse, he came face-to-face with a radio antenna. He didn't have enough controllability left to avoid it. He clipped the belfry with a wing tip and the aircraft did what nosotros phone call a 'pole vault,' digging a wing tip in the footing and cartwheeling."

The Messerschmitt's remains lay on its back. "I saw two legs protruding from the cleaved nose section. They belonged to my all-time friend! Mindlessly ignoring all regulations, I waded through the [extinguishant] slime and foam to the airplane and looked into the crushed cockpit expanse. I recognized that in that location was admittedly no chance of survival....'I desire everyone who is not directly connected with the recovery performance to go out the scene immediately,' I ordered."

The blow report concluded that when Pöhs dropped his undercarriage, it had rebounded then hard and high that it stuck the aircraft'south belly, breaking a T-Stoff line and causing the rocket to automatically shut downward. Worse was the post mortem report: while Pöhs was trapped in the cockpit, he had been inundated with T-Stoff. "Even though he was wearing a protective adjust," Späte was told, "his entire right arm had been dissolved by T-Agent. It simply wasn't at that place. The other arm, as well as the head, was goose egg more than a mass of soft jelly." His friends could simply hope Pöhs had been killed instantaneously or at to the lowest degree knocked unconscious in the crash.

In Jan 1944, virtually two years after delivery of the first 163B, EK 16 finally received its first operational models, only "operational" did non mean gremlin-gratis. The unit spent weeks wringing them out to resolve engine flame-outs and other issues. In February, Späte suffered a ruptured fuel line on takeoff. With his cockpit filling with T-Stoff fumes, his overheat indicator lit upwardly, and his fuel-dump valve lever inoperative, he had to put his flying bomb down on six inches of snow: "The bird started sliding on its steel skid like a skier coming down a well prepared slope." Before it skidded off the airfield grounds into the trees, Späte popped his canopy and rolled off the fly, sustaining a concussion in the process. "It was unthinkable," he wrote, "to consider sending a unmarried airplane that had such an unreliable engine into combat, let alone deploying an unabridged squadron."

Read the incredible story of the rocket fighter in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

Rocket Attack by Nicolas Trudgian

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Messerschmitt Me-163B-1a
Overstate

1 Generator bulldoze propeller
2 Generator
3 Cockpit ventilation intake
4 Compressed air bottle
5 Bombardment and electronic packs
6 Solid armour (15mm) nose cone
7 Accumulator pressuriser
8 Directly cockpit air intake
nine FuG 25a radio pack
10 Plastic rudder pedals
xi Rudder control assembly
12 Hydraulic and compressed air points
thirteen Control relay
14 Port T-Stoff cockpit tank ( 13 Imp gal/lx litre capacity)
fifteen Flight controls assembly box
16 Radio turning controls
17 Control cavalcade
xviii Hinged musical instrument panel
nineteen Revi 168 sight
20 Armourglass windscreen (90mm)
21 Armament and radio switches
22 Airplane pilot's seat
23 Back armour (8mm)
24 Head and shoulder armour (13mm)
25 Headrest
26 Mechanically-jettisonable canopy
27 Ventilation console
28 Stock-still leading edge fly slot
29 Trim tab
30 Material-covered elevon
31 Inboard trim flap
32 Position of underwing landing flap
33 Radio frequency selector pack

34 FuG 16zy radio receiving aerial
35 T-Stoff filler cap
36 Chief unprotected T-Stoff tank (229 Imp gal/1, 040 litre capacity)
37 Aft cockpit glazing
38 Ammunition for Mk 108 cannon (threescore rpg)
39 Ammunition feed chute
40 T-Stoff starter tank
41 C-Stoff filler cap
42 HWK 509A-1 motor turbine housing
43 Chief rocket motor mounting frame
44 Rudder control rod
45 Aerial matching unit
46 Tailfin structure
47 Rudder horn remainder
48 Upper swivel to rudder
49 Rudder
50 Rudder trim tab
51 Rudder control rocker-bar
52 Rocket motor combustion bedchamber
53 Tailpipe
54 Rocket thrust orifice
55 Vent pipe outlet
56 Hydraulic cylinder
57 Lifting betoken
58 Tailwheel fairing
59 Steerable tailwheel
60 Tailwheel oleo
61 Tailwheel steering linkage
62 Combustion chamber bracing
63 Wing fillet
64 Trim flap mounting
65 Inboard trim flap
66 Elevon mounting
67 Port elevon
68 Trim tab

69 Rear wing spar
lxx Wingtip bumper
71 Wing structure
72 Fixed leading border wing slot
73 Eleven actuator linkage
74 Position of port underwing flap
75 FuG 25a aerial
76 Pitot head
77 Wing tank connecting pipage
78 Front fly spar
79 C-Stoff leading edge tank (16 Imp gal/73 litre capacity)
eighty Gun-cocking compressed air bottles
81 Main C-Stoff wing tank (38 Imp gal/173 litre chapters)
82 Gun-cocking mechanism
83 Port 30mm Mk 108 cannon
84 Expanding shell and link chute
85 Gun mounting frame
86 Pressure-tight gun control passage
87 Blast tube
88 FuG 25a IFF equipment
89 Tow-bar attachment point
90 Compressed-air ram for landing skid
91 Hydraulics and compressed-air pipes
92 Landing skid pivots
93 Landing slip mounting
94 Landing skid mounting brackets
95 Mechanism for jettisoning trolley
96 Take-off trolley frame
97 Landing skid
98 Take-off trolley retaining lugs
99 Take-off trolley alignment pins
100 Low-pressure tyre

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Showtime kill of a rocket fighter?

Lightning Strikes a Komet, by Roy Grinnell

Capt. Arthur J. Jeffrey, 479th FG

The twenty-four hours after Tacon's inconclusive tangle, Capt. Arthur J. Jeffrey, leading 4 P-38J Lightnings of the 479th Fighter Group, spotted a crippled B-17G, She Hasta, of the 100th BG:

"We were on an escort mission for heavy bombers returning to England. As I looked out over the formation of aircraft below me, I saw a crippled B-17 that was terribly shot upwardly—pathetic, actually. Information technology had only nearly two-and-a-one-half engines running, and half of its tail was gone. The aircraft was just shot all to hell. But the worst thing was that bomber was on a northwesterly form, which meant that it would miss the British Isles completely.

"It was a grey day, and we were over Holland, which was blanketed by intermittent layers of cloud. The B-17 was steadily losing distance. We'd found that when bomber navigators got separated from their atomic number 82 navigators they had all sorts of trouble remaining on course. I chosen my second element leader to stay up and embrace united states while I went down with my wingman to give the B-17 a steer considering information technology was then God-awfully lost. But I couldn't raise the crew on the radio—I estimate all their sets were shot out."

Jeffrey moved in on damaged bomber to hand-signal its crew, but despite his P-38'south distinctive planform the bomber's rookie gunners fired on him.

"At least they were alert," Jeffrey thought.

"'Xanthous Four' provided summit comprehend. The B-17 plodded along at eleven,000 ft, dodging holes in the overcast to keep out of the flak, and at 1145 hrs I observed an Me 163 in attack position behind information technology. The Me 163 made a slight low-side 'five o'clock' laissez passer at the B-17, followed through in a slight dive so levelled off. At well-nigh this fourth dimension the German language must have seen me considering he made another slight dive. He and so started a very steep climb, weaving all the while, as though he were trying to see behind him. During this weaving I closed with him and opened burn down, observing strikes on the Me 163.

"At 15,000 ft it levelled off and started to circle to the left, equally though positioning himself to assault me. I could plough tighter than he could, and I got in a practiced deflection shot, with the closest range estimated to be 200 to 300 yards. I idea I was getting hits but my shots seemed roo far abroad for effect when puffs of smoke started to emanate from the tail of the jet.

"The pilot didn't seem to know what to exercise in a fight—he didn't human activity like he had been in combat before—and at about 15,000 ft he turned and attacked, with me looking right downwards his throat. He was pretty green. We got into a tight circle and I saw some good deflection shots hit him. Then he rolled over and went straight down, with me fire-walled behind him. For the outset time in my life I found out how—at over 500 mph—your props can act as brakes. I was shooting at him as I was going directly downward, and my tracer path was walking forrard of the 'bat'. Then I got into an arc of an exterior loop, and when I finally pulled out a few hundred feet in a higher place the ground, I blacked out."

Ltn. Hartmut Ryll

Jeffrey's wingman, Lt Richard G Simpson, reported, "After near 4000 ft of climbing the Me 163 turned to the left and Capt Jeffrey attacked again. I had one bad engine and couldn't climb as fast, and so I couldn't see if he was getting strikes or non. And then the Me 163 split-essed and went down into a very steep, nigh vertical, dive. Capt Jeffrey and I followed, but I couldn't keep up with them. I started to pull out at between iii,500-four,000 ft, indicating a little over 400 mph. The Me 163 went into the clouds, which were at around 3000 ft, nonetheless in a dive of 80 degrees or better. He must have been indicating 550-600 mph, and showed no signs of pulling out. I don't see how the German could have gotten out of that dive."

Jeffrey claimed a probable, and was famously awarded the get-go rocket-fighter kill of the war, but the Germans actually recorded no Komets lost or even damaged that 24-hour interval. The 163 was then glace that, even with its engine off and tanks empty, it could out-collapse Allied fighters diving on full ability, and with those big bat wings, pull out later on likewise. (Lightning pilots were actually forbidden to power-swoop because compressibility might tear the tail off their airplane.)

Equally Lieutenant Hartmut Ryll put it, "Our bird hangs in in that location, steady as a rock. The Americans break off their attack relatively early. And by the time the airspeed dissipates back out of the 900km/h area, you're already back in the local expanse and under the protection of our own flak."

Playing the Final Ace, by by Heinz Krebs

Me-163 Komet fighters climb vertically through an eighth Air Force bomber germination and its top fighter cover earlier swooping downward to attack the "heavies."

Me-163S

Several 163B models had their rockets and fuel tanks deleted to brand 2-seat trainers, with the teacher in the rear seat and water in the fuel tanks to simulate changing fuel load. The Russians took at to the lowest degree one of these back to the USSR after the war.

Me-163B-0 V41.

On Saturday, May 13, 1944, Major Wolfgang Späte flew this fighter, in this paint scheme, on the world'southward outset rocket-fighter sortie. It was unsuccessful.

Baptism of Fire, by Marii Chernev

Brandis, August 1944: As Unteroffizier Kurt Schiebeler flees for home in Messerschmitt Me-163B V53, Due west.Nr. 16310062 "White 9," P-51 Mustangs of the 353th Fighter Grouping dauntless German flak to give chase. Once on approach, a rocket pilot was powerless to evade. "White 9" survived the state of war, just to be was blown upwardly by the Germans at Brandis in a futile effort to continue rocket technology out of Allied hands.

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Peak-scoring rocket-fighter airplane pilot of all fourth dimension

Sgt. Siegfried Schubert (Silent)
The small propeller on the Me-163's nose drove an electrical generator for radio and instrument ability.
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Lt. Charles Laverdiere's B-17 XK-B of the 305th Bomb Group subsequently its render to Chesterton, Britain, eight-24-44. Damage often attributed to Ryll, but consistent with Schubert'south gun-camera film.

Me-163 gun camera moving-picture show, 8-24-44
Schubert's Mk108 cannon shoots up Pugh's B-17, and and so Lavadiere's. The only Me-163 gun-photographic camera flick known to be.
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Sgt. Siegfried Schubert
Faceted arch to left is the mount for shield of bulletproof glass

On August 24, 1944, Sgt. Siegfried Schubert claimed one B-17 of the 92nd Bomb Grouping (Lt. Koehler piloting) damaged and some other (42-97571 of of the 457th Bomb Group, Lt. Winifred Pugh piloting) destroyed. Unknown to Schubert, Koehler's aircraft never reached England. On Sept. 8th Schubert's gun-photographic camera film was exhibited to Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (Air Strength High Command), upon which Full general of Fighters Adolf Galland declared the Me-163 fully operational.

On Oct 7th, Schubert shot down 2 more than B-17s to bring his total to three. That aforementioned day he was killed when his Komet exploded on takeoff.

Komets in the sights: United states of america Air Force gun photographic camera footage

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Further developments

Efforts were ongoing to solve the rocket fighter'south lack of endurance and firepower. A spare 163A received under-wing racks with two-dozen unguided R4M rockets—a rocket-firing rocket—only they offered no improvement in range, trajectory or explosive power over 30mm cannon. More promising was the Jägerfaust, the "fighter fist," ten recoilless 50mm wing guns automatically firing upward when the Komet passed under a bomber. Simultaneous firing initially blew off the 163B's canopy. A sequential delay was built into the trigger organization. Meanwhile Walter was working on a new rocket with (comparatively) long-range prowl capability. Information technology was to be fitted into the stretched-fuselage Me-163C, merely that was passed over in favor of the fifty-fifty more advanced Me-163D with retractable wheels, and finally the Me-263 with cruise rocket, landing gear, and pressurized cockpit. Only three prototypes, however, were complete past war's end.

Me-163A with 24 R4M rockets

The R4M was adult to offset the increasing weight of High german aircraft guns capable of downing Allied bombers, specifically the 30 mm MK 108 cannon. Although each rocket was heavier than a 30mm trounce, 24 rockets weighed less than the gun plus its usual 65 rounds. The R4M had a like trajectory to the xxx mm rounds, requiring no change to the standard Revi 16B gunsight.

Me-163B-0 V45

Used for trials of the fly-installed, upward-firing, recoilless 50mm Jägerfaust mortar. Aircraft was badly damaged when simultaneous firing of all ten projectiles blew off the canopy.

Me-163C

To accomodate the new twin-chamber Walter rocket with cruise capability, Messerschmitt extended the 163B fuselage, added extra tank capacity and a new pressurized cockpit topped with a bubble canopy.

Me-163C

Shown with B-type canopy. Maximum distance increased to 52,000 ft, powered flying time to about 12 minutes, and gainsay fourth dimension from about five minutes to nine. Iii prototypes were planned, merely only one was flown, and without its cruise rocket.

Me-263 (Ju 248)

Fitted with tricycle gear and twin-sleeping accommodation Walter cruise rocket (though the gear was probably not retractable in testing), the Junkers Ju 248 used a three-section fuselage to ease construction. The epitome was completed in August 1944 and glider-tested behind a Junkers Ju 188 but probably never tested under power.

Me-263 (Ju 248)

Though designated Messerschmitt Me 263, Junkers continued evolution of three prototypes before the plant was overrun by the Russians. The Soviets briefly developed the design as the Mikoyan-Gurevich I-270, which was discontinued after two prototypes crashed. Annotation iii-blade generator prop.

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Other rocket fighters

Mitsubishi J8M1 Shusui

Rocket fighters likewise appealed to Federal republic of germany'due south B-29-beset allies, the Japanese. Though various plans and components were lost in transit aboard sunken U-boats, they developed their own license-built Komet, the Shusui ("Powerful Sword"). On its first powered examination on July 7, 1945, however, the prototype'due south engine cut out. Information technology crashed. Pilot Toyohiko Inuzuka was killed.

Bereznyak-Isayev BI

The Soviet BI was of more conventional layout than the Komet, but its rocket, burning kerosene and red fuming nitric acid, was no more reliable and contributed to airframe corrosion. One pilot was slightly wounded in a motor explosion and another killed in a crash when he lost command near the audio barrier. The BI never saw combat. Like the Germans, the Russians became more than enamored of jets.

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Germany's other rocket fighter: the Bachem BA 349 Natter

Captured Bachem Natters undergoing inspection past U.s.a. troops. St. Leonhard im Pitztal, Tyrol, Austria, May 1945
Overstate

With the Komet in perpetual development, in July 1944 the Luftwaffe established a Jägernotprogramm, Fighter Emergency Program: a quick and dirty solution to the Allied bombers pummeling Germany. Engineer Erich Bachem's Ba 349 Natter ("Snake") would operate more like a guided missile: a vertical-takeoff, semi-disposable manned rocket. The Luftwaffe rejected the concept, so Bachem put it in forepart of Heinrich Himmler. The Reichsführer-SS, desiring to give his personal army some air ability, approved the idea.

Bachem BA-349 Natter
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ane Rudder
2 Rudder postal service construction
3 Tail fin structure
4 Tailplane construction
five Elevon
6 Exhaust orifice
vii H2o-cooled control vanes
viii Control rod I in kage
9 Jettisonable rocket clusters
ten Ventral rudder
11 Ventral fin
12 Launch-rails strengthening
13 Combustion chamber
xiv Rocket zipper eyes
15 Recovery parachute
16 Bound-operated container

17 Parachute go out hatch
xviii Forward rocket attachment points
nineteen Fuselage break point xx Walter HWK 509A-1 rocket motor housing
21 T-Stoff tank (95.7 Imp gal; 435 L capacity}
22 T-Stoff filler cap
23 C-Stoff filler cap
24 C-Stoff tank (41.eight Imp gal; 190 L capacity)
25 Wing skinning
26 Laminated mainspar
27 Solid rear spar/trailing edge
28 Wingtip Iaunch-raiI strengthening
29 Wooden wing structure
30 Solid forrad spar/leading edge
31 Hinged cockpit canopy
32 Side glazing

33 Roof glazing
34 Back armour
35 Head residual
36 Seat padding
37 Seat pan and harness
38 Control column
39 Musical instrument panel
40 Armoured windscreen
41 Recovery parachute cable
42 Rudder pedal
43 Missile command and fusing box
44 Armoured bulkhead
45 Band sight
46 Honeycomb (Bienenwabe)
47 Hs 217 Fohn 73-mm missiles
48 Jettisonable plexiglas nose cone

Bachem BA-349 Natter

Bachem BA-349 Natter by Vincenzo Auletta

Given more development time, the Natter might accept presented Allied bombers with a second rocket threat

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After the war

Vii GMC 2½-ton 6x6 Jimmy trucks with Me-163B Komets bound for the The states. Peradventure Merseburg, Germany.

Disassembled Komet being loaded aboard a C-46 Commando for ship to the United states of america

Captured Me-163 gets a tow from a B-29 Superfortress.

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Wolfgang Späte later on the war

To this day the Me-163 Komet remains the only rocket-powered combat shipping. Its pilots—those who survived—had the satisfaction of knowing they flew the hottest bird in the sky. In the final weeks of the war B-17 pilot Edward F. Reibold was startled to find a rocket fighter flying his wing, but out of machinegun range. "Without changing direction, he slid into within a few anxiety of our left fly tip," the bomber pilot remembered. "We were, at the fourth dimension, traveling at an airspeed of approximately 285mph. The pilot of the German plane hesitated off our fly, nodded, threw us a 'Highball', pushed his throttle forrad and accelerated forrad in flying leaving usa 'standing' in mid air."

"They were all filled with an intractable urge to serve their Fatherland in a special way," remembered Späte of his pilots. "...They were ready to give their lives in order to fulfill their dream of flying in a rocket."

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Get the rest of the story in the November 2017 consequence of AVIATION HISTORY magazine

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More from Don Hollway:

guillenmarrined.blogspot.com

Source: http://donhollway.com/me-163/

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