Barely had the flames of war ceased smouldering when our predecessors turned their attention to the Nazi regime’s airborne machinery
After hostilities ceased in the Second World War, The Engineer set about assessing some of the technologies that had beset Allied forces in the previous years. Barely had the flames of war ceased smouldering when our predecessors turned their attention to the Nazi regime’s airborne machinery, with the first article dealing with the Luftwaffe’s engines and the second looking at the aircraft they powered.
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Both articles make the point that while the in-service equipment may have tended towards the conservative – the articles note that the Allies flew “at least a dozen’” designs of single-seat fighter, but Germany used only two basic designs throughout the war – Germany had a forward programme in advance of the Allies. To keep pace with new models of the Spitfire, Messerschmitt had to continuously improve the Me109, which was 10 years old by the end of the war. In 1937, the article says, the 109 had 500HP and was slower than the Hurricane, but by the end it had 2000HP, could match a Mustang in the air and had 10 times the firepower of the original 109.
Germany also had the world’s first jet-propelled aircraft, in the diminutive shape of the single-engine Heinkel 178, which first flew on 29 August 1939, four days before the invasion of Poland. A flying test-bed that was never intended for military purposes, the He178 used an engine developed by Hans von Ohain, who in 1936 had patented using the exhaust from the gas turbine for propulsion. In developing jet-powered aircraft, Heinkel was soon outstripped by Messerschmitt, whose twin-engined Me262 – known as the Schwalbe (Swallow) or Stormvogel (Stormbird) went into intensive development in 1942 and entered service in April 1944, a few months ahead of the Allies’ first jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor. The article mentions that such aircraft, despite having an impressive performance, could not stay in the air for long; in fact, by the time the Nazi regime collapsed, its supply lines had been disrupted so much by the Allied advance and by air bombardment that the Stormbirds could not be fuelled.
The article points out that the Luftwaffe used engines powered by rocket engines, such as “the amazing little Me163 Komet”. This was “capable of a level speed of about 550mph and could climb to 30,000ft in two-and-a-half minutes”. Although “comparatively quick and cheap to build”, these wooden interceptors were seriously hampered by “their short endurance in the air”, so Heinkel was commissioned to build a cheaper aircraft with slower performance but longer air duration, the He163, an ungainly looking craft with a single jet on top of its fuselage. This was beset with “fairly serious teething troubles”, the article says with wonderful understatement: on its second flight, the leading edge of the wing collapsed and the aircraft broke up in mid-air. Despite this, the design was revised and the aircraft – known as the Volksjäger (People’s fighter) – went into production.
Volksjägers were particularly difficult for inexperienced pilots on take-off and landing, the article notes, but “credit must be given to the Germans for producing what they set out to produce – a cheap fighter with better performance than standard Allied types”.
As the war approached its end, the Nazi regime turned to “last-ditch” efforts. One of these sounds truly terrifying for any pilot who might have found himself unlucky enough to draw the proverbial short straw. The Bacher Natter (Viper) could only be classed as an aircraft because it had wings (albeit very short ones), controls and a pilot, but in every other respect it was a “piloted flak rocket”. Powered by a liquid-fuelled rocket engine and launched vertically, it was intended to destroy enemy bombers with an array of rockets launched from its nose. After this, the pilot would eject and descend by parachute, while the rear fuselage, containing the rocket engines, would break off and also parachute to the ground to be recovered. With no need for conventional take-off or landing, the aircraft would not have needed fully trained pilots. Fortunately (for all), it never entered service – its only test-flight killed its pilot.
Have been away in Europe for a few days and missed recent posts: but this one did remind me of a senior Engineer who I met in the 60s who had been a part of the team gathering this type of data. Because of the shambles that was Europe then (see above! -though I do believe they have really got their act together now) for whatever reason this chap was given a diplomatic passport: and by some hitch in the rules, this need never be relinquished. So he didn’t. He would always smooth any passage through any airport for those in his party! Mr Churchill I gather was frightened by technology- something he really didn’t understand: what a shame that our present shower are not even intelligent enough to know how ignorant they are: as they demonstrate almost daily.
Just remember the TSR -2 debacle under the Labour party. Today this aircraft would still be viable. The UK inventiveness has always been to the forefront in many areas of Engineering/Science, except the powers to be are still very ignorant and arrogant that they “know best” and end up selling off all this technology abroad [or it is thieved like the “Concorde drawings” and other ideas]. The major area no one can touch the UK Engineering field in is in Motor Sports!
STEM needs a real boost with more apprenticeship programs being offered in schools!
I believe that the Gloster Meteor and the Me262 entered service in the same month, according to most reports.
Hopefully the UK can still lead the world in some areas – I’m waiting excitedly to see what Dyson come up with for their EV.
Gents: One additional note that always impressed me about Germany after the Versailles Treaty was although they were prohibited from developing military aircraft, they turned heavily toward the development of gliders, and learned a great deal about aeronautics. The high altitude fighter that was still essentially a Fw-190, although designated Ta-152h, had the wings we Americans later used (essentially) for our U-2 spy plane. Admittedly, some of the “desperation” designs of the Germans during WWII were a motley bunch of oddities, the Schwalbe and the Komet were clearly major advances (as bomber interceptors). I still don’t get how the German pilots could ever hit any bomber they were diving on, since the speeds they could acrue would certainly put them into “buffeting” loss of flow over control surfaces to some extent. Swept wing did help with this, but targeting any object in flight (however large it might be) was no mean feat.
Labour Party + TSR2 . (*) One of my most vivid memories was seeing this beautiful aircraft in the BRAB hanger at Bristol : [please someone confirm that I am right?] If I recall, this was at about the same time as 001 Concorde was also there in assembly. And a Fairy Delta -test and analysis plane.
I was there in the summer vac of 1961 (maybe 1962) and assisted in a minor capacity in the development of turbine blades for the earliest Olympus Engine(s) .
(*) Isn’t it amazing that the same folk who regularly accuse one political party of profligate expenditure fail to note that all ‘defence’ expenditure is only possible if the economy has the funds to pay for it. In 1964…we did not!
Locked into my memory is a description-read about in the late 40s?- of one German Pilot, who armed his aircraft with incendiary devices and a scatter of small explosive items and literally dropped these from above onto the mass of Allied bombers in the stream: hitting a few and missing many: but in terms of cheapness to kill this must have been a most cost-effective weapon.
After the Versailles Treaty was signed, although the Germans was prohibited from developing military aircraft, they turned heavily toward the development of gliders, and learned a great deal about aeronautics.
About 20 years ago, I had a project in Bosnia: the economic case for replacing the room-full of carpet-weaving looms which had become ‘collateral damage’ after a NATO strike which missed the nearby Danube bridge! That unhappy country had been the subject of sanctions from the EC: no spares, no equipment. I have to say that the ingenuity and shear inventiveness of getting round these sanctions was amazing. Necessity is the mother of Invention? It certainly is.
following on from the above: I suppose the total lunacy of the situation was confirmed when I realised that destroying these looms cost NATO/the EC ..and the same EC via the EBRD -European bank of Reconstruction & Development were to pay for their replacement. I have heard of various groups making work for each other: how absurd that the cost of both comes from the same tax base!?