Fighter Jets Military
The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was a German rocket-powered interceptor aircraft. Designed by Alexander Lippisch, it is the only rocket-powered fighter aircraft ever to have been operational and the first piloted aircraft of any type to exceed 1000 km/h (621 mph) in level flight. Its performance and aspects of its design were unprecedented. German test pilot Heini Dittmar in early July 1944 reached 1,130 km/h (700 mph), an unofficial flight airspeed record unmatched by turbojet-powered aircraft for almost a decade. Over 300 Komets were built, but the aircraft proved lackluster in its dedicated role as an interceptor and destroyed between 9 and 18 Allied aircraft against 10 losses. Aside from combat losses many pilots were killed during testing and training.
Work on the design started around 1937 under the aegis of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS)—the German Institute for the study of sailplane flight. Their first design was a conversion of the earlier Lippisch Delta IV known as the DFS 39 and used purely as a glider testbed of the airframe. A larger follow-on version with a small propeller engine started as the DFS 194. This version used wingtip-mounted rudders, which Lippisch felt would cause problems at high speed. Lippisch changed the system of vertical stabilization for the DFS 194's airframe from the earlier DFS 39's wingtip rudders, to a conventional vertical stabilizer at the rear of the aircraft. The design included a number of features from its origins as a glider, notably a skid used for landings, which could be retracted into the aircraft's keel in flight. For takeoff, a pair of wheels, each mounted onto the ends of a specially designed cross-axle, were needed due to the weight of the fuel, but the wheels, forming a takeoff dolly under the landing skid, were released shortly after takeoff.
The designers planned to use the forthcoming Walter R-1-203 cold engine of 400 kg (880 lb) thrust, which like the self-contained Walter HWK 109-500 Starthilfe RATO booster rocket unit, used a monopropellant consisting of stabilized HTP known by the name T-Stoff. Heinkel had also been working with Hellmuth Walter on his rocket engines, mounting them in the He 112R's tail for testing – this was done in competition with Wernher von Braun's bi-propellant, alcohol/LOX-fed rocket motors, also with the He 112 as a test airframe – and with the Walter catalyzed HTP propulsion format for the first purpose-designed, liquid-fueled rocket aircraft, the He 176. Heinkel had also been selected to produce the fuselage for the DFS 194 when it entered production, as it was felt that the highly volatile monopropellant fuel's reactivity with organic matter would be too dangerous in a wooden fuselage structure. Work continued under the code name Projekt X.
The division of work between DFS and Heinkel led to problems, notably that DFS seemed incapable of building even a prototype fuselage. Lippisch eventually asked to leave DFS and join Messerschmitt instead. On 2 January 1939, he moved with his team and the partly completed DFS 194 to the Messerschmitt works at Augsburg. The delays caused by this move allowed the engine development to catch up. Once at Messerschmitt, the team decided to abandon the propeller-powered version and move directly to rocket-power. The airframe was completed in Augsburg and in early 1940 was shipped to receive its engine at Peenemünde-West, one of the quartet of Erprobungsstelle-designated military aviation test facilities of the Reich. Although the engine proved to be extremely unreliable, the aircraft had excellent performance, reaching a speed of 550 km/h (340 mph) in one test. More details
The designers planned to use the forthcoming Walter R-1-203 cold engine of 400 kg (880 lb) thrust, which like the self-contained Walter HWK 109-500 Starthilfe RATO booster rocket unit, used a monopropellant consisting of stabilized HTP known by the name T-Stoff. Heinkel had also been working with Hellmuth Walter on his rocket engines, mounting them in the He 112R's tail for testing – this was done in competition with Wernher von Braun's bi-propellant, alcohol/LOX-fed rocket motors, also with the He 112 as a test airframe – and with the Walter catalyzed HTP propulsion format for the first purpose-designed, liquid-fueled rocket aircraft, the He 176. Heinkel had also been selected to produce the fuselage for the DFS 194 when it entered production, as it was felt that the highly volatile monopropellant fuel's reactivity with organic matter would be too dangerous in a wooden fuselage structure. Work continued under the code name Projekt X.
