The German Rocket Fighter that Dissolved its Pilots Alive

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the rocket-powered messerschmitt me-163 comet an aircraft so fast its performance would not be matched for nearly a decade yet so horrendously dangerous to fly it would claim the lives of more german pilots in development and training than allied air crew it took down in combat experiments with rocket-powered aircraft have a long history in germany in a series of increasingly audacious publicity stunts during the 1920s automobile manufacturer fritz opal experimented with fitting gunpowder rockets to a variety of vehicles from cars to railway wagons these experiments culminated in the construction of the lippisch aunt or dark which on june 11 1928 became the first manned aircraft to fly under rocket power later in the 1930s aircraft manufacturer ernst heinkel undertook a series of experiments to develop a liquid-fueled rocket engine for use in aircraft heikel's first success came in march 1937 when a modified hg-112 propeller-powered fighter flew under rocket power for 30 seconds heinkel next constructed the diminutive hg-176 which on june 20th 1939 became the first aircraft to take off fly and land solely under rocket power but while heinkel had high hopes for rocket aircraft the german air ministry was decidedly less enthusiastic on the first being shown the he-176 general burst ernst uded direct general of equipment for the luftwaffe exclaimed you want to fly with that it has no wings those are running boards on actually seeing the aircraft fly odette reportedly flew into a rage declaring that is no airplane leave it alone i forbid you to fly it again even a demonstration in front of top nazi dignitaries including adolf hitler on july the 3rd failed to make any impact and germany entered the second world war with conventional propeller-driven aircraft but the realities of war would soon force the high commands to change its mind starting in 1942 the royal air force and united states army air force began a concerted strategic bombing campaign against germany and occupied europe pounding cities factories and other targets round the clock the luftwaffe stretched thin by hitler's invasion of russia and chronically short on men and fuel was unable to cope and so the call went out for a fast inexpensive rocket-powered interceptor that could stem the tide of allied aircraft the aircraft that would become the comet emerged from the work of two aviation pioneers the first was alexander lippisch designer of the pioneering aunt whose work with dfs the german research institute for sailplane flight was attempting to develop a unique high-speed tailless glider in 1939 lippisch left efs and took his design to aircraft manufacturer mesh schmidt who gave it the designation me163 mesher schmidt soon began experimenting with fitting the 163 with a revolutionary new rocket engine designed by helmuth volta who had also designed the engine for heinkel's pioneering hg176 walter's r1203 cold engine originally developed as a jet assisted takeoff or jatopod for helping overloaded transport aircraft get off the ground reacted concentrated hydrogen peroxide with sodium permanganate to generate high pressure steam producing around a thousand pounds of thrust the result was an aircraft of unprecedented performance on the 2nd of october 1941 test pilot heinrich heine ditmar flew the prototype me163a to a record airspeed of 1003.67 miles per hour becoming the first pilot to exceed a thousand miles per hour in level flight three years later ditmar would fly the improved 163b model to 1130 miles per hour a record that would not be beaten by a jet aircraft for almost a decade the comet's climb rate also far exceeded that of any contemporary aircraft being able to climb to an altitude of 39 000 feet in less than four minutes this in turn required pilots to maintain a special low-fiber diet to prevent gas from expanding painfully in their gut even unpowered the comet displayed superb handling characteristics with pilots reporting the aircraft to be nearly impossible to stall or spin and so fast was it in a glide that upon being buzzed by a 163a at 300 miles per hour a startled ernst udette is reported to have exclaimed what sort of engine has it to which presumably smug alexander lippisch replied none yet despite this blistering performance the comet quickly revealed itself as an extremely hazardous aircraft to fly among its major flaws was its landing gear for takeoff the comet was fitted with a simple two-wheeled dolly which was jettisoned as soon as the aircraft left the ground after which the aircraft landed on a retractable ventral skid however if the pilot forgot to extend the skid or unlock the skid the impact of landing could cause severe injuries indeed during the comet's development three of its main test pilots heinie ditmar rudy oppens and hannah reich suffered serious spinal damage and skull fractures due to hard landings and they spent several months in hospital recovering but the greatest danger by far came from the comet's engine helmuth volta's hwk 509 hot engine which powered the production me163b ran on a combination of two propellants t-staff highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and sea off a 30 mixture of hydrazine hydrate and methanol these propellants were hypergolic meaning that when mixed they immediately and violently exploded the fact that they were both colorless liquids meant that handling accidents were common as in the case of one unfortunate ground crewman who inadvertently poured a container of tea stuff into another containing a small quantity of sea stuff as author william green recounts before he realized the magnitude of his mistake his remains had been spread thinly over the entire test shed this extreme volatility meant that great care had to be taken when refueling the comet with the repellents being loaded one at a time and the engine flushed out with water between each flight but despite these measures many comets and ground crew were lost to explosions before the aircraft ever left the ground even worse teastoff is highly corrosive and can strip flesh from bones in seconds it also tends to react with even the smallest speck of dirt or organic matter decomposing violently into scalding steam and oxygen meaning it could only be stored in glass or enamel lined containers while comet pilots were issued with special acid-proof asbestos flight suits any landing made with propellant left in the tanks was likely to end in disaster as mano ziegler one of the few comet pilots to survive the war recounts in his memoirs a certain failed verbal alloys verndal from shao an excellent fellow and completely reliable flying with the accuracy of a precision instrument was chosen from among us pupils to make the first sharp start in the comet make it good always we shouted and then he was off as expected iloice's rocket motor cut out at about 6000 meters altitude and he turned back towards the field as precise as ever then without warning side slip the shout came from one of the group a lois was much too high to touch down anywhere near the landing cross sideslip sideslip we all shouted as if he could hear us but the comet shot past us and passed the landing cross too high too fast anxiously we watched the comet touch down far outside the airfield perimeter rebound into the air drop back again like a brick and then skid to some rough ground and turn over on its back a split second later a blinding white flame shot up followed by a mushroom of spoke on other occasions pilots suffered a fate worse than an explosion as with the case of oberlutent joseph pons who on one flight released his takeoff dolly too early the dolly bounced off the ground and struck the aircraft rupturing a teastoff line paz immediately jettisoned his fuel and banked around to make an emergency landing but just like alloys verndal missed the runway touched down on rough ground and flipped over to the relief of his watching comrades his aircraft did not explode but when they finally reached him and turned the comet over they were greeted by a gruesome sight t-staff leaking from the ruptured line had dissolved the unconscious poles alive despite these hazards development of the comet pressed ahead with the first operational squadron jagged geschfada 400 receiving production me163bs in may 1944. the model b was larger and more streamlined than the model a and equipped with armor protection for the pilot and a pair of mk-108 30-millimeter cannons with 60 rounds of ammunition each due to its limited engine endurance of only six minutes the comet served as a point defense interceptor with airfields being located next to strategic targets such as the lunar synthetic fuel works near leipzig to conserve fuel the comet was towed to the runway by a modified agricultural tractor before having its propellant tanks fueled the pilot then took off and climbed to an altitude of 39 000 feet before cutting the rocket motor and making a gliding dive onto the approaching bomber formation the pilot would make as many attack runs as fuel and airspeed would allow before breaking off and gliding to a landing on the ventral skid the now immobile comet would then be retrieved by another tractor and prepared for its next flight the first operational sorties soon revealed yet another of the comet's many flaws it was too fast due to the short range of its cannons during a high-speed approach the pilot only had a window of around three seconds in which to aim and fire making it impossible for all but the best marksmen to hit their targets engineers attempted to correct this issue by developing a unique weapon known as the sg500 jagdefalst this consisted of a set of five fifty millimeter cannon barrels mounted vertically in the wing roots and connected to a photocell such that when the comet pilot passed into the shadow of a bomber all ten barrels would fire automatically field trials revealed the system to be highly effective with lieutenant fritz kelb reporting that the b-17 he fired upon simply disintegrated however the war ended before the weapon could be deployed in large numbers meanwhile though the comet's incredible speed and maneuverability had initially taken the allies by surprise escort fighter pilot soon learned how to counter them with lieutenant colonel john murphy and lieutenant cyril jones of the american 359th fighter group shooting down the first me163 on august 16 1944 allied pilots also discovered the comet to be most vulnerable just after landing and many were destroyed on the ground by roving fighter bombers but in the end what finished off the comet was the deteriorating state of the german war economy and by early 1945 a shortage of pilots fuel and spare parts left the 370 aircraft produced laying idle on the ground only a handful of sorties were flown before germany finally surrendered on the 8th of may 1945. so what in the end did the comet achieve while exact figures are hard to come by it is believed that between may 1944 and april 1945 me-163 pilots shot down between 9 and 18 allied bombers against a total of 10 comets lost in combat with many more aircraft pilots and ground crew being lost to accidents during the comet's long and troubled development strategically the comet was an abysmal failure which like so many other german wonder weapon projects consumed vast quantities of resources and manpower that was urgently needed elsewhere while contributing little to the final outcome of the war yet despite this the comet was an impressive technical achievement and closely studied by the allies after the war during the late 1940s and early 1950s the united states soviet union in the united kingdom all experimented with mixed power interceptors propelled by a combination of jet and rocket engines in order that combined the high speed and climb rate of the comet was the greater endurance and range of a regular jet however it was soon realized that the interceptor role was more economically filled by unmanned surface-to-air missiles and the rocket-powered fighter faded into irrelevancy an impressive but obscure footnote in the history of aviation and now for some bonus facts only one allied pilot ever flew the comet under power royal navy captain eric winkle brown who to this day holds the record for the most different aircraft types flown by a single person on may 17 1945 brown drove to the me163 airfield at hussom and asked the german ground crew to prepare an aircraft for him at first the crew refused not only because of the dangerous nature of the aircraft but because following a series of incidents in which allied pilots were killed flying captured german aircraft flights like the one brown was requesting were officially forbidden eventually brown agreed to sign a disclaimer absolving the crew of any responsibility and they helped prepare and familiarize him with the aircraft in 2014 in an interview brown recounted his experience as such the noise is thunderous and you are given a bit of a shake-up on takeoff the acceleration is unbelievable i thought the performance was does anyone word for it phenomenal but i felt that i was flying in a tin coffin because the chances of bailing out were virtually nil i took it on in the full knowledge of what the risk was but at the end of the day i felt a tremendous satisfaction in having beaten the odds after landing safely brown and the no doubt relieved ground crew reportedly celebrated with a well-earned drink now for another bonus fact another weapon of desperation to emerge from german drawing boards at the end of world war ii was the beckham ba 349 nata or viper an aircraft that was essentially a manned semi-disposable anti-aircraft missile realizing that taking off and landing from regular airfields made interceptors like the comet vulnerable to attack by allied aircraft designer eric backham conceived of an aircraft that could be launched vertically from a tower allowing it to be easily hidden in forests built mostly of wood and other non-strategic materials the matter was powered by the same volta hwk 109 rocket engine as the me163 and armed with a battery of 24 55 millimeter unguided missiles housed in its nose upon launch an autopilot would guide the aircraft to operational altitude whereupon the pilot would take over and intercept the incoming bomber formation after expending his armament and fuel the pilot would then jettison the cockpit section and bail out the rear section of the aircraft would descend on its own parachute allowing it to be recovered and the engine reused while backhand's design was rejected by the air ministry it soon caught the attention of heinrich himmler and development began in october of 1944 under the direction of the ss following a series of eight gliding flights and unmanned launchers in april 1945 it was decided to proceed with a manned launch on may the first test pilot lothar cyber climbed into the cockpit and blasted into the air becoming the first person to lift off vertically solely under rocket power the launch proceeded smoothly until the natter reached an altitude of 500 feet whereupon the canopy which had been insecurely latched flew off knocking sieber unconscious the neta continued to rise to an altitude of 4900 feet whereupon it pitched over plunged to the ground and disintegrated on impact despite this setback sieber's flight was followed by four more successful manned launchers but the war ended before the neta could be used operationally but based on telemetry gathered from his ill-fated flight it is likely that just prior to impact lotha sieber achieved yet another first becoming the first man albeit briefly to break the sound barrier so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and i'll see you next time

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 1,855,871

Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know

Id: qfAw4YvI_u0

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020